After being tossed around (aka referred to) by doctor after doctor, I finally have an official date to fix my entrapped nerve. I shared the details of the long road to diagnosing the reason for my severe atrophy of the right infraspinatus and supraspinatus muscles in this post, and finally found a doctor confident enough to hopefully fix my nerve. I guess you could say, he’s got nerve. eh, eh?
The issue seems to be an inflamed ligament in one of the shoulder joints which is causing an impingement on my suprascapular nerve running through it. This, in turn, is not allowing the nerve to signal any growth to my muscles past the impingement. Hence the atrophy. I already shared a pic of my caved in shoulder blade in the other post, so I’ll spare my three readers a repeat visual. You’re welcome, Gary.
Surgery will commence on June 22nd. It will be a day procedure and hopefully I’ll be on my way to recovery quickly thereafter. Of course, the following onslaught of medical related bills might put both my wife and me under! Nah, we have good insurance, it’ll be more like a little needle prick to draw blood. It sucks, but hopefully it’s for a good cause…..fixing me.
Going Mom is doing good about trying to keep me in good spirits since I know I will lose the ability for a lot of the things I do daily. Playing with Avery or simply picking her up to go potty or play helicopter around the house will be out. And lifting weights? Nope, at least not for 3 months.
It’ll be hard to do lower body lifting since things like squats and deadlifts require the use of your shoulders too. At least I can do lower-only riding on the new Schwinn Airdyne we bought. But again, Airdyne “workouts” with Avery will be out for a while.
I expect to do lots of walking and body weight moves like squats, lunges, karate Ninja Turtle kicks (hey, why not?), and maybe sit ups. We’ll see, I’m sure I can get creative, I’ll drive myself crazy otherwise. I mean, I am Going Dad afterall. What’s going to drive me absolutely nuts though, is the lack of playtime with Avery. So much of what we do when we play involves having a good set of arms and shoulders. Just one won’t cut it for (safely) turning your kid into a helicopter. And going high in the sky while swimming just ain’t happening this summer.
Okay, after the soon approaching surgery that is. Her laugh is infectious! In a good way.
But like my wife keeps saying, this might be just what I need to actually focus on gaining some healthy weight (it’s been one of my goals for years), letting my entire body heal from day after day of high intensity exercise, and starting fresh. I won’t be dormant by any means, but heavy lifting is obviously out. I’ll admit that I could use the break, and am kind of excited about having the chance to start over in a sense.
As long as I can type, I’ll be sure to share my progress and what I’m finding to keep me sane. With the love and support of my mom, wife, and Avery, I am positive I’ll be good to go in no time. Maybe the help of a physical therapist as well. Oh, and as Avery says, healing hugs and kisses help too.
We have a family beach vacation coming up. Right when we return is when I’m having the surgery, so I’m going to make the most of it and toss that cutie all around. Safely of course. 🙂
