Never short of topics

Getting old sucks because you're falling apart. On the other hand, you're never short of topics.

Sometime between now and the first snowflake, I'll be having shoulder surgery to "clean up" (an exact medical quote) the ruins left by my long-ago bike accident.

Oddly enough, my rotator cuff is more or less intact. Everything around it turns out to be a disaster. There's the famous golf-ball size wad of something. Whatever it first was, it's now a calcified arthritic mass, perched amid the pointy fragments of some badly battered cartilage, with little pointy bits digging into muscle tissue. The joint has more fluid leaks than the 1969 Fury I once owned, and lots of little opportunistic arthritis colonies scattered here and there.

What got me to "yes" very fast on surgery was hearing that the upper biceps attachment is in rags.

I saw someone blow out their biceps once, doing weight training. When it detached, the muscle rolled up under the skin exactly like a windowshade. Clinicians like to ask patients in these situations if they are "experiencing any discomfort." You betcha dupa this guy had discomfort. I remember it was sort of a struggle to get him to lie still until the EMTs got there. Yes indeed, people do writhe in pain.

The discussion of the week, then, is whether to wait until we have some summer activity under our belts, or to get the thing hosed out soonest even if it blows the rest of the summer. The jury is still out, but the memory of that blown bicep sort of biases the decision. It's judgment vs. stupidity.

When I get back to work, I think I can finally code the Dx for "what a mess."