Melting… Melting… I’m Melting!

Monday, August 25th — For about three years, or more, my left shoulder has been frozen. Well, at least I call it that: I’ve been able to raise the arm only just above shoulder level. Couldn’t put my hand on top of my head, although I could touch the back of my neck. Just frozen, it was; wouldn’t change no matter what exercises I tried to do. I was anticipating (based on an MRI taken of the shoulder in the fall of 1995, and the fact that the UCSD resident showing me the picture had commented, “Look, that’s where your shoulder joint used to be!”) having replacement surgery of that shoulder, probably in early 2009 when I’m finally off the cane. I was also anticipating having the right shoulder replaced, maybe a year or a year and a half later. It has been well on the way toward copying its counterpart, although the symptoms began about a year after the left one started to freeze. The right one is actually more painful, but the left one is more limited.

A question Dr. Klein asks every several weeks, usually when the monthly re-exam comes along, is: “If you could change just one thing, have the problems completely disappear in just one place, what would it be?” I used to try to fudge my answer: “No, I need three places — two shoulders and the right foot. I can’t choose among those!”  But I never got away with it.  So, forced to choose and grumbling all the way, I would choose the left shoulder, the one that is frozen, even though it doesn’t hurt quite as much as the right one does.

So, after declaring my spine “shockingly normal” ( see post of August 3rd), David Klein decided that henceforth he would give less attention to adjusting my spine, and more attention to working on the shoulders and the feet. In doing this, he has been using CAM (the little robot that’s like an infant jackhammer, slamming away at anything from 15 to 30 pounds of pressure) on both shoulders and both feet.  OWWWWW! is my only comment. I’m back to feeling as though I’d been hit by a truck… but in a good way, of course! Three times a week of this brief torture for a month, and — I appear to be melting!

Last week, as I was wiping down the walls of my shower in the morning (as I have done daily ever since we had the tile re-grouted three years ago), I suddenly realized that I was holding the towel in my LEFT hand. I was actually wiping the wall about seven feet up from the floor with my LEFT arm. That isn’t as amazing as it sounds, because I am six feet tall; but it was amazing enough, considering that up to then, I hadn’t been able to raise that arm that far. And I was doing it sort of unconsciously, because my mind’s on overdrive in the shower while I figure out what I’m going to do with my day, and what I intend to accomplish, and how the time will work around my chiropractic appointment and any other appointments I may have.

I did a little tiny hip-hop of joy when I found myself using that arm. Yeah, it hurt, but it always hurts, and it was actually moving. I couldn’t wait to tell DK I was melting. And he said, “Wow, freakin’ amazing! That’s blog material, if you ask me.”

So now you know, too. Just like the Wicked Witch of the North, I am MELTING. And I couldn’t be more pleased about it!

Thanks for reading — Betsy