A Golf Warrior's Surgery

Surgery is PAINFUL

I totally underestimated the:

a) pain
b) fuzzyheadedness
c) pain
d) inability to move the arm operated on
e) pain
f) soreness


Since I'm impatient, I was, I HAD to be, the first patient (pun intended) of the day for Dr. Strangelove and his sidekick Nick the Greek.

6am comes early.

The last thing I remember before the procedure commencing was laying face-up on the operating table and making wisecracks about Michael Jackson's choice of sleeping medicine when I began to feel the anesthesia creeping into the veins in my right forearm. Just like the man said, it burned.

I woke up in the middle of a circus. Things were all fuzzy - my eyeballs were glazed over and I couldn't make things out quite right...other patients were being wheeled into the recovery room and there were Philipino nurses everywhere. This posed a problem since they all looked alike and I couldn't remember who I gave my soda and ice order to. Very frustrating since I didn't have my voice back yet to bark at people because my throat was sore from the intubating tube that was placed there during surgery.

Then it hit me. My left arm felt like 200 pounds of concrete had been poured into it.

Reality had just come into focus.

At this point, let's face it, with all the meds in my body I didn't feel any pain however I was definitely stoned and was thoroughly enjoying the recovery room chaos going on all around me.

As mightily as she tried, my lovely bride hit every bump on the ride home. I know this since I bit my lip over each one. My lip is now nearly as sore as my shoulder.

Stumbling home in my sling wearing shorts, Hawaiian shirt, sneakers, and faggy white leggings that are used to help prevent blood clots, I was quite the sight.






Come to think of it, I look like a white basketball player in the hood.

The day of the operation remains pretty much a blur - a combination of getting up early, not getting enough sleep, being doped up, cut on, poked around in, having my bones be shaved, scraped and drilled into was enough for one day. Thankfully there is Ambien which helped me sleep the night away in painfree slumber.




The next day was very rough but that's always the case with any injury. By evening, my appetite returned and I began to feel better. I was off the pain meds by day 3.

This day was excellent because I took off all the bandages, threw away my sling, tossed the leggings in the trash 7 days too soon, and took a nice long shower. I laughed at how lame I must have looked trying to wash under my left arm. The folly of my predicament just made me laugh out loud......as my eyes teared up from the soreness.

Doc told me today to keep the arm moving. He presented me with full color photos of the before and after shots of the surgery just so I knew he really did something in there. My golf game is on hold until October although I can practice my putting and chipping anytime I would like. This will actually be good for my game. Everyone needs a better short game. Just ask Tom Watson.

To my surprise I had not 3 incisions in the shoulder but 4. The labrum tear was slightly worse than he thought and he needed another hole to insert an arthroscope to properly anchor the labrum back to the bone with sutures that looked to me like multi-colored rope and some metal doohickeys that he popped in there.

He was all jacked up pointing out this and that on the photos but it was all Greek to me. The muscles all looked like chicken breasts, and the torn labrum part looked like when I'd tear the turkey meat off the bone at Thanksgiving.

If the turkey were still alive, he'd need this type of surgery too.