Oh, you didn’t know?

So I am shocked and ashamed to see that the last time I posted here was back in December of 2018. Well, a lot has happened since then and I can tell you it’s been a hell of a burden.

The year ended OK with me trying to recover from my back surgery and all was going quite well however the damage to my leg was significant and even now (September 11 2019) the strength isn’t back much more than it was post op. I know it’s a slow process but it’s been almost a year since my surgery and I was expecting some of the mass and strength to return.

There was a massive glitch in my recovery and I will be short with it here but it has been a terrible ordeal for me and I am certain I would never be able to do the process justice here. Some time in April I was taking out the garbage that we had produced at the gym from installing the new carpet rolls we had been given by U of T Gymnastics. They had donated 6 rolls of 1.5″ carpet which we snatched up and managed to replace most of our 1″ areas and carpet the concrete areas making the gym so much better in the process. Our neighbour who I had repeatedly asked not to park his damn trailer outside our back door had once again put it in the way so I was unable to get my car back into the loading dock to throw the carpet pieces in. (As an aside I also got a new car in March but more on that later). In the process of jumping into an out of the loading dock taking the garbage to my car I fell off the dock landing on my shoulder. The fall was painful but I was able to move my arm and I had thought maybe I had broken something or strained something, little did I know how badly I was hurt.

I called my lovely wife who was napping so I had to drive myself to the hospital to get the requisite xrays etc. I was told to return in a couple of weeks to see if the xrays had cleared up or if I needed an MRI. Long story short I needed the MRI to discover that all 4 rotator cuff muscles had completely detached from the bone. At this point I was told I would have to make a decision on surgery but to wait a few weeks to see how it healed. It was actually going quite well however since the capsule of the joint now had no stabilizing muscles and would likely wear itself out in a matter of months I finally decided to go ahead and have surgery. So on July 31 almost 3 months after the fall I went under the knife. It is also worth noting that I had other injuries from the fall including bruised ribs that made it almost impossible to sleep or breathe once I lay down. I must have scared the crap out of Nicole and Elyse gasping for air laying in bed literally struggling for breath. It was an absolute nightmare.

So here I am 6 weeks after surgery having endured some of the most painful days of my life and having to get used to doing everything with my weaker arm. The pain was in some respects worse than the pain from my back surgery and the first 4 days I was in so much pain that I literally got zero sleep regardless of how many times I took my pain meds. I am now supposed to be out of my sling for the first time and I am very relieved because the sling was causing me significant back pain from having the bolster keep my arm so far away from my body. My arm is incredibly weak my shoulders have atrophied to an unbelievable degree and the pain when I move is still significant. So it’s a new day, I have my arm back although it’s more like Deadpool’s baby legs but it is a start.

On the upside we were able to take a cruise in July on the Allure of the Seas to the Bahamas (before they got destroyed by hurricane Dorian) and it was a great time and improved my leg strength a little due to the amount of walking back and forth to the kids club and the buffet. I had my blood pressure medication increased to try to get my bp down into reasonable territory since apparently it’s still a little out there and the summer has simply disappeared in a haze of pain and day camp. So that’s all for now, I will go into more details about the Subaru Ascent later, maybe…

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