INDIA EIGHTYTWO -- PAU

I cancelled Kona.  There, I finally acknowledged that this time my recovery from injury is going to follow a normal slow process.  No miracle bounce backs.  No finishing the Arizona Ironman 2 weeks following cracking some ribs and lacerating a hand in a fall in the desert.  No finishing Kona second in my age group 9 months following Achilles tendon repair.  No, this time its different. Finally, 12 weeks following "the accident", 4 weeks following rotator cuff shoulder reconstruction and only 5 months to Kona, I had to admit to the practical.  My healing prowess was average at best and not sufficient to make Kona an option.  I had held out hopes, holding on to the thought of at least participating in Kona, until it was no longer possible to ignore the obvious.

I finally had my shoulder surgery April 13, nearly 8 weeks following "the accident".  The delay was necessary to allow repair of my many other injuries not the least of which was the punctured lung and fractured hip, scapula, and ribs. During that delay I also had a plastic surgeon remove the soup bowl sized hematoma from my left thigh that had formed its own bursa.  The shoulder surgeon found a "mess" in the rotator cuff of my left shoulder including complete tears of the Supraspinatus and Subscapularis muscle   tendons, and a partial tear of the Long bicep muscle tendon.  In less than 2 1/2 hours I had the rotator cuff area cleaned out and anchors implanted in the humerus and the tendons sutured.  Surgery was performed under a general with a nerve blocker and Oxycontin prescribed for after surgery pain relief.  I weaned off the opiate as soon as possible.

5 HOLE SURGERY

Two days after surgery I was in physical therapy.  Why so fast?  I had developed frozen shoulder and the sooner the range of motion is restored to the shoulder the better.  The therapy was, and still is, horribly painful as the arm is moved passively to try to break down the adhesion's that restrict its motion.  Every day I go through two or three sessions of at-home therapy movements.  Three times a week I go visit the physical therapy folks where they manually force the arm further into where normal arm motion should be but mine doesn't go.  It is so painful that I now take Hydrocodone prior to these sessions so that I don't cry and thrash like a baby on the table.

The general level of pain following the surgery has been passable most days until its time to sleep. Then the pain level is enough to result in shallow and interrupted sleep. To try to help this issue, last week I started to walk or stationary bike some days, all low intensity. Unfortunately, with an arm in a sling your balance is off kilter which has led to non-injury related pains elsewhere in my body.

Following shoulder surgery I had my right hand index finger examined by a hand surgeon because the last digit no longer would bend.  Turns out the accident gave me a "jersey finger" injury, so named because it typically happens in football when the tackler tries to hold on to the opponents jersey only to have the finger tendon rupture.  If treated shortly after injury, the tendon can often be reattached. In my situation, the tendon has shriveled up into the palm of the hand and the "tunnel" it had traversed through absorbed.  The most practical options remaining are do nothing and adapt or fuse the last digit into a partial bend. I need to ponder these options a bit.

So there it is. All the literature and medical advice indicate a 6 to 12 month recovery is typical following surgery.  So, from now on its mostly therapy and unfortunately a slow process through recovery.  However, I will be following the Kona race and wishing all the best to the Minnesota and Arizona participants, as well as those friendly competitors in the M70-74 age group.  Mahalo.