vituperation

Friday, August 12

I have surgery on my right shoulder to repair and anchor my labrum, as well as remove several arthritic bone spurs from the joint. At the suggestion of a nurse anesthesioligist reader, I opt for an interscalene block before surgery, which will completely deaden my right shoulder and arm. This involves having a big needle poked in my neck, and a probing search for the right nerve to inject. During this quest, the doctor nudges the nerve that controls my diaphragm and sets the muscle to fluttering wildly. It feels strange, but kind of cool.

Surgery goes well, and it’s not until about 4:00 am Saturday morning that I realize how glad I am I had the interscalene block. Post-op, my wife tells me that the surgeon didn’t have to put a screw in my shoulder blade like he’d planned. We stop at Publix on the way home to drop off the prescription for 30 pain pills and pick up a bag of Oreos. I wait in the car, fading in and out as the anesthesia fully wears off.

Saturday, August 13

For several years, my definition of the word pain was having a slightly inflated catheter quickly yanked out of my penis. This day, I find a new definition for the word, and spend most of the day in a narcotics induced semi-coma.

Sunday, August 14

I decide I’d rather hurt than be stoned, and pitch the remaining 25 pain pills. I am able to shower this day and do so for almost an hour.

Monday, August 15

I work a half day at home. Typing with one hand is a pain in the ass, as is using the mouse with my left hand. I spend a great deal of time bitching about how much the sling hurts my neck and left shoulder.

Tuesday, August 16

I’m able to use my left hand to raise my right arm up onto the desk so I can type with two hands. I also spend several hours with my arm out of the sling, resting on a pillow. My neck and left shoulder rejoice. I work almost a full day from home.

Wednesday, August 17

I drive to visit the doctor. His nurse removes the stitches from the four holes in my shoulder, and advises me not to tell the doctor I’d had my arm out of the sling. I can see the look he’ll give you if you tell him that, she says.

I tell the doctor anyway, and explain why I did it. He doesn’t give me a look. He says, it’s fine if you want to take it out of the sling some. You know your limitations. He gives me an exercise to do three times a day, bending over and swinging my arm in circles, clockwise and counter. He also tells me that, contrary to my wife’s statement, he did put a screw into my shoulder blade. He showed me numerous pictures of the inside of my arm, including the screw he put in. I am simultaneously awed and squicked.

I work a full day in the office. I lose the sling as soon as I get there, and don’t put it on again.

Thursday, August 18

I can lay in the tub and hold a book two-handed without much pain.

Friday, August 19

I am able to contort myself enough to get into a pullover shirt without pain. I put all the button-ups back in the guest closet. I think longingly about hiking, and debate taking an easy flat hike. I decide not to.

Saturday, August 20

I reach a recovery milestone: I am able to once again wipe my ass with my right hand. I can also raise my right arm enough to touch my right index finger to my forehead, though I don’t do that right after I wipe my ass. I sit around the house all day, watching movies and thinking about trying a hike. After all, it’s been eight days since the surgery.

I don’t go for a hike.

“So what do you think of the Aron Ralston book?” Robyn asked.

“I like it. Sometimes he gets a little wordy, but I like the way he broke up the story of his ordeal with the rock with stories about other hikes and climbs. But something bothers me a little…”

“What?”

“The way he sometimes throws himself into something new. It’s like he doesn’t think about the potential dangers, and puts himself at unnecessary risk. Like he leaps before he looks. That seems, I don’t know, foolish.”

So played the memory of the conversation yesterday morning as I stood at the intersection of the trails. If I stayed on the trail I was on, the Wagon trail, it would lead me up a not steep climb to the Bluffline trail and back to the parking lot. If I took the Alms House trail, I could go to Three Caves and up my favorite trail on Monte Sano: Waterline.

Also the most difficult trail on the mountain. I’d have to climb it one-handed, with my right hand in my pocket for arm protection.

I had an epiphany then, a breakthrough in my thinking as that conversation played out in my head. It’s not about racing willy-nilly into a potentially dangerous activity without any thought, it’s about pushing yourself as hard as you can to see what you’re capable of doing. About knowing that there are dangers, but deciding that the payoff is worth the risk. That’s not foolish, that’s life.

Sorry for misjudging you, Aron, I thought.

And then I went and climbed that motherfucker with one hand.

Incidentally, I may be dead by the time you read this, as I told my wife beforehand that I was going to — and fully intended to on the drive over — hike the flattest, simplest trail on all of Monte Sano. I may have also neglected to tell her after the fact that I ended up going up the hardest trail on the mountain nine days after shoulder surgery.

On the off chance you’re one of those knowitall nanny types who’s currently feeling an overwhelming urge to lecture me in a comment, please don’t.