Late and painful entry

Sorry for missing my post last night. After a happy hour business meeting (it really was!), T-Rex Tim and I had some light food and a beer. It was late and I was pretty exhausted due to a solid workout in the afternoon. It's always good to hook up with T-Rex and it doesn't happen enough, though I did just get to see him on Friday at my golf outing, so I shouldn't complain.

My doctor from the University of Chicago called me yesterday to discuss the results of my recent shoulder MRI. Turns out that I have a tear in both my rotator cuff and my labrum, not good. On the positive side, I've been playing with it all year, though the cortisone shot helped me mask the pain for three months. So now I have some decisions to make on surgery, basically when.

If ibuprofen gets me through the tournament this weekend, I'll use that for the next two months as needed. If not, we'll go with another cortisone shot. It's not great to have a cortisone shot in an area that's getting operated on in the next three months as it can hinder the healing a process a bit.

The healing process is going to be quite an issue for me. With just the labrum tear, the recovery time is relatively short. With a rotator tear, you can't throw for six months!!! Six months!!! Ughhhhh!!! For the first six weeks, your arm is in a sling. After that period, you can start rehab. Since my physical therapy sessions covered by insurance are all used up this year, my surgery should be within the last six weeks of the end of year, which means I can start throwing in May/June, which actually works out ok since I don't like playing in the cold weather anyway.

That six weeks in a sling though KILLS my tailgating potential. I'd be solely dependent on my guests loading the car and setting up. Plus there's a football game on Thanksgiving morning that I'd like to play in. So I'm thinking my surgery will either be the second week of November or the week after Thanksgiving. Question is which to choose. Since I won't be able to throw for six months, I'm leaning torwards waiting until after Thanksgiving, but that would mean my arm would be in a sling for three Bears home games and one away game that I would attend in Detroit, not to mention Joisey Ken's visit at the end of December. If I go under the knife two weeks before Thanksgiving, I'll still miss three home games, but the sling will be gone by Christmas. Ohhhh, decisions.

Some flowers on my street that I couldn't resist snapping a picture of: