My Impatient Patient

So, my friends on Facebook may know that Joe had arthroscopic shoulder surgery last Friday. He came through the surgery beautifully and is even now taking his first shower since the surgery. I know he'll feel immeasurably better after that.

Right after the surgery was done, the surgeon came out to tell me that all was well. She showed me many technicolor photographs of his shoulder and described exactly what she did, but I'll be damned if I can tell you what those pictures showed or what she said, except for two things:

• His rotater cuff was quite badly inflamed -- bad.
• The MRI made the injury seem worse than it really was -- good.

He has four very small incisions. The largest has two stitches; the others have one each. That's the wonder of arthroscopic techniques! The doc severed his biceps tendon and repaired a muscle tear, but did not have to shave away any bone spurs.

He's been an impatient patient. He keeps trying to do things with one hand that really require two, because he doesn't think he should just lie about. Inevitably, he moves the operated-on shoulder in a way that reminds him that he has had surgery. I've been trying to intercept all of these activities and I'm mostly successful. Thank goodness he has better sense than to try scooping the cat boxes!

The surgeon, God bless her, provided him with a goodly amount of Percocet. He really doesn't like it, so yay, more for me! (I kid.) It makes him kinda goofy and sleepy, so he's trying to get by with Tylenol and an acetaminophen blend that he takes for migraines.

We went out for lunch yesterday because he was bouncing off the walls, which really isn't good for just operated-on shoulders. I suspect we'll go out again shortly, if only to get out in the sun on this beautiful day and also to buy coffee.

And now his shower is done. I got to dry his back -- whee!