50 years ago, a single hit during a football drill at practice changed the course my football life. I had been a quarterback, and now I was not. From the brown and dusty grass of the Douglas MacArthur Junior High School football field to a very clean, cool and sterile OR at West Florida Hospital, it has been a long and painful journey. This journey will be more painful for a few days, and then get better.
After years of trouble with my right shoulder, I have finally had to have it repaired. Today the first day post-surgery, and the nerve block is wearing off. I’m making a few notes as a public service announcement so that my friends will benefit from this ordeal. I have to make this short. The nerve block is wearing off and the Oxy is kicking in. No telling what I’ll write ‘under the influence’.
1. Before you have surgery get preventative maintenance done on your AC unit, or do not have surgery in the summer. Just for laughs, Karma will cause your AC to fail while you are at the hospital. Your home will be like an Easy Bake oven when you walk in after surgery.
2. Take a big ole shot of Milk of Magnesia with every Oxy you take. You will thank me later.
3. Make sure your nearly blind wife takes her driving glasses rather than her reading glasses when you go to the hospital. It will make the drive home a lot less exciting.
4. Jalapeno Pickled Eggs are gifts from the gods. Eat all that you want as a last meal prior to surgery. Enjoy them because after surgery you will not be able to open the damn jar, and you can bet your sweet ass your wife will not open that particular jar for you.
5. Pain heals, chicks dig scars and Glory lasts forever. I injured my shoulder in at football practice. There was no glory, just the trainer, Jimmy Wade, looking down and saying ‘Oh man, I’ll bet that hurts’. The surgical scars will be tiny. Landi doesn’t really care for scars at all. The nerve block isn’t completely done yet and it is already ‘healing’. Oxy, please with a side of MOM.
6. If possible, have your surgery done in Pensacola at West Florida Hospital. I’ve been in a lot of hospitals and had a bunch of surgery. This is the most professionally run place I have ever seen. Zero hassles and great staff. My ortho surgeon, Dr. Lurate, is my kind of doctor. He answers the questions using English words that I understand, and doesn’t soft-peddle around bad news. He gives you the good, the bad and the ugly. If you need ortho surgery, come to Pensacola and get him.
7. Note….when the sign says “Dr: Hospitalist”, the colon is not a typo. Hospitalist is not a Greek name. Hospitalist is a medical specialty now.
8. In the days leading up to surgery, your shoulder will get more and more painful because they forbid you from taking meds that make it not hurt. Those meds thin the blood, and they want to make sure that your blood will clot. Of course, moving your shoulder will become painful. At some point, your arm becomes purely ornamental. Eventually you lose the ability to raise your arm but you will retain the ability to bend it at the elbow to very awkwardly reach some things. You can count on your loving wife to carefully note this. She will mention to everyone at every opportunity that now you have a ‘Pterodactyl arm’. She will then demonstrate flailing her arm around. I can tell she loves me because she takes such joy in this.
9. Properly motivated, it is possible to eat a large cheeseburger from Whataburger using only one hand.
10. Without my blood pressure meds, my blood pressure is a pretty amazing number.
11. When the nerve block wears off, the game changes significantly. Oxy, please, and more MOM.
12. While the nerve block is in effect, do not try, even briefly, to hold a glass in the hand on that arm. You won’t even know it when you drop it, and you wife will not believe that the dog knocked it out of your hand.
13. Your dogs don’t understand why you are hurt. They only understand that your are hurt, and they know that their love can heal you.
14. You can heal damn near anything with a good doctor and a good dog.
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