The Hot Shoulder

It's a bit of a cliché that every time you hit a major milestone in aging, your body decides it's going to stop working in one way or another. For example, when you turn 30, it seems you get hurt when you never would have been hurt before. Then you turn 40, and nothing heals anymore. You just cut yourself peeling an orange, get sepsis and die. 

Last year, at 44, I got a little bit philosophical and talked about how I wasn't going to let things bother me and was just going to go with the flow. Take things a little bit easier and maybe enjoy life a bit. 44 was pretty good. I enjoyed being 44. But a week and a bit ago I turned 45, and this is the beginning of the end.  

The problem first started coming back from camping when I noticed that my shoulder was a little bit sore. This is nothing new. It's sort of in that same 30- to 40-year-old aging thing. You take a little bit of time doing physical labour and the next thing you know, you're a little bit sore and hurt. But that soreness was not getting better. 

So on the Tuesday, I asked Rhonda if she'd mind giving me a little bit of a back rub and help to loosen things up a little bit. She was very generous and did exactly that. The back half felt great. A good massage was starting to loosen things up. Was hoping that maybe I could enjoy the rest of my time off. 

Then she said, "Turn over. Let's get the front half." And so began (so far) over a week of agonizing pain, hospital visits and really no end in sight as far as pain and shoulder injury is concerned. 

Wednesday morning, I ended up in Urgent Care in so much pain. I could barely see. They took some X-rays, poked at it, prescribed a few medications for me and sent me on my way. That night, the pain was so extreme and so unmanageable. I found myself in the Pasqua Hospital emergency room.

No shade on the nurse practitioner who saw me at Urgent Care, but there was a lot more going on there than just a little bit of shoulder injury. The doctor at the emergency room diagnosed me with a serious form of tendonitis and took me off work for at least a week. Gave me some very strong drugs and stuck me full of needles and things to try and get things under control. 

 Why is this tube full of air?

It actually took about 8 hours for them to get the pain under control, and if I'm honest, it only lasted about 6 hours before I was back to where I was. But at least now I've got some idea of why I can barely even see straight. 

So yeah, that really is my life right now. Just constant fucking pain. Even this blog is being dictated because the idea of sitting with my shoulders up typing right now is too much to bear. I'll just be happy to dictate today's post to you. But I'm sitting in the sun, and that's kind of nice. Makes me warm. 

Holding it together with hockey tape like my ancestors did.

I'm going to say I'm really impressed and want to vigourously applaud the staff in the two emergency rooms that I interacted with, both at Urgent Care and at the emergency room at the Pasqua. They were patient, good communicators, and they were very compassionate. I got a lot of help and a lot of comfort from them. Bravo to each and every one of those men and women who helped me out. They were great people. 

But the government of Saskatchewan can go fuck itself. I'm not impressed. That wait times I now need to navigate are unacceptable. And to be sure this is painful - but it's not life threatening. God help those people who are waiting on the government to let them die. 

I was given a referral for an ultrasound so we can see what's going on and develop some kind of treatment or intervention to make this better. The very soonest that I can see a radiologist to get an ultrasound is the end of November this year. So, foreseeably, I have to wait at least 4 months to even get a test to tell me what is actually happening in my shoulder so that I can start doing the exercises and treatment I need.

I was also given a referral to a physiotherapist. It's a week later and have not heard or seen a fucking word from any of them. So here I am trying to self-diagnose and self-treat using YouTube and the internet. I hear complaints from people in the medical field about how people self-diagnose and self-treat using the internet and using YouTube, but what the fuck else am I supposed to do? Honestly, what am I supposed to do? I have no access to effective treatment. I might just start bloodletting because what other options am I being given?

And of course there's the mental health part of all of this too that I've got to contend with. I took 2 weeks off of work. One week was going to be camping and the second week was going to be getting some things done. Get someone to come quote a new door in the back, do some work on the lawn, maybe see about getting the car fixed. You know, make some plans and get shit done. A lot is falling apart in my house, and a lot of things need to be taken care of, and I had a plan to do that. Until my fucking shoulder went out on me, and now what? Just let it fall apart, I guess; let it all fall apart because I can't get timely medical help and my body won't let me take care of the places around me until I do.

It also extends to some of the fun stuff. I wanted to maybe do a little bit of recording, sit down and do some multi-track demos. I wrote a song while I was out camping that I'd like to demo out, but I'm in too much pain. I can't even focus right now. If it wasn't for voice-to-text, you wouldn't even be getting a blog this week cuz I just can't do it. 

All that to say, 45 fucking sucks. I wish I was 44 again, and I'm not looking forward to 46. Just hoping I can make it through the next few weeks.