Surgery Setback a Speed Bump on the Road to Retirement

"I. Am. Independent. As. F*ck!"

After visiting Tucson in February 2021, I filed my paperwork to retire on July 31, 2021. It was just a matter of tying up loose ends…but the nagging shoulder pain I’d been nursing had other plans.

An MRI revealed tears in the right rotator cuff and bicep. My orthopedic surgeon gave me the option of surgery or taking a wait and see approach. I had places to go. Things to see. I wanted to lead an active retirement with biking, pickleball, and camper hauling.

I scheduled surgery for Tuesday, March 30th, 2021.

Knowing I had surgery scheduled in a week, I started using my non-dominant hand to get used to doing daily tasks. I’m very right-handed so brushing my teeth with my left hand was super awkward.

My daughter Jes had emergency abdominal surgery for a twisted colon in 2020 and I took care of her while she recovered. Now the roles would be reversed: I’d be the patient and Jes, the caretaker.

I reported to the surgery center at 5:30 AM where I had a pain block with anesthesia for arthroscopic surgery. Jes took me home that afternoon. She had arranged to work from home for the first week during my recovery.

I settled into her big, beefy recliner to recuperate.

Feeling no pain in my pain block fog, I was missing my daily treadmill walks. I went upstairs to do a couple of laps around the kitchen and dining room.

I need a few things while I’m in the recliner, I thought. I’ll just put them in this Trader Joe’s bag and carry them downstairs with my left hand. Oh, and I need to eat something.

Jes heard the microwave door open and came rushing up the stairs.

“What are you doing Mom? I’m supposed to be getting things for you.”

In my pain block induced stupor, I looked at her indignantly and blurted, “I. Am. Independent. As. Fuck!”

“I’ll make you whatever you want. Please go sit down. You had surgery today.”

After guiding me downstairs, Jes helped me back into her recliner. She put a pillow under my legs and tucked the blanket around me, snug as a bug in a rug as my mom used to say. Not long afterward, she left the room to answer a phone call.

The blanket soon became too warm. I tried kicking the pillow out from under the blanket.

That didn’t work.

I scooted down a little and reached with my left hand to grab the pillow and push.

Suddenly the reclined chair tipped forward and touched the floor, with the back end in the air.

I couldn’t wriggle myself up into it.

I definitely could not get out of it.

I was just getting ready to text Jes to say, “I think I have a small issue…” when she came back into the room to find me at the bottom of the topsy turvy recliner. In my pain med daze, I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t get the words out.

She didn’t skip a beat.

“So, how’s that independence working for you now, Mom?”

“I may have been a little hasty after all.”

The rest of the week was spent in a pain coma, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep in my recliner. My useless right arm hung like a limp noodle, with my elbow and right wrist immobilized and stuck to my waist with Velcro. There was little I could do for myself. I had to rely on Jes to help with showering and dressing. She’d crack jokes when giving me sponge baths so I wouldn’t be embarrassed (but I was anyway).

I couldn’t wear my sports bras, which honestly may have caused the problem in the first place with the whole crossing your arms in front of you to lift them over your head.

Jes took a few of her new tank tops, cut the shoulder hems out, and shimmied them up my body, knotting them at the top so I’d have an undershirt and wouldn’t “free ball,” as she called it. Then she’d put on and adjust my awkward, complicated sling.

The second week was pain coma round two: getting off the narcotics and alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen. My daughter was there for me every step of the way, even when I was a completely non-compliant patient.

I had heard the rotator cuff recovery was difficult, but I was unprepared for how truly helpless I was to do routine tasks. Having the bicep tear compounded the challenge. Removing bottle caps and the smallest of tasks I wouldn’t have thought twice about before the surgery were a daily frustration.

We take having two functional hands totally for granted.

Once I started my arduous physical therapy journey, every session was a new lesson in feeling the pain and doing it anyway. I’d heard lots of stories about people who didn’t push through the PT pain, resulting in limited mobility. I worked PT into my schedule like it was my J.O.B.

My pre-surgery goal of learning to be ambidextrous was an epic fail. My left-handed hen scratching was still illegible. I had to have occupational therapy to learn to use my right hand to write again.

Since I worked remotely, I was back to work in two weeks. It was six weeks before I could drive again.

Thankfully, my retirement was delayed by only one month. In July, I was able to trade in my Subaru Outback for the Ford Explorer I’d need to pull the Scamp I ordered scheduled for delivery in a year.

Jes helped me set up my Explorer as a camper…did I say I have a best daughter ever?!

I was ready to hit the road, four months after my rotator cuff/bicep surgery.

But first, I had to head back to the office in Michigan to retire from my day job. I was eager to hit the nomad retirement trail.