1 February 2017
Three and a half hours at Edinburgh Royal infirmary today being assessed for my forthcoming shoulder operation.Endless questionnaires, blood tests and all the pre op trimmings before a meeting with the surgeon. I’m scheduled in for the 13th which thankfully is a Monday but the bad news kept on coming today.
I needed the calm of the waiting room and a few pints of water from the cooler to get my blood pressure down and hydrate after a couple of whiskies too many the night before when a shit grenade went off. The pin was pulled by some usual suspects from afar but Simone and I took the impact as intended targets. It rocked us but we’re too strong to let it get us down. Regular incoming we’ve come to expect over the years we have been together and when all is ranted and done it isn’t really our problem. I had other more important things to deal with next day.
My blood pressure was normal by the time they ran the tests and I met the surgeon feeling relatively calm about the forthcoming operation. This was the first time I was to be fully briefed about the
problem which I had been told a few months ago was a torn tendon. The scans on the screen made little sense to me but the diagnosis that followed certainly did. It wasn’t what I expected.
The “torn” tendon is actually completely detached from my arm and required bone shaving, pins and pulled over to be “glued” to the new anchors. That was one of the tears. There’s another on the other side of the joint and a possible tear on the left shoulder as well. I listened in soft shock.The word “pain” kept recurring.
It turns out my condition is worse than was originally diagnosed and the 6 month recovery could actually be 12 with no promises and a diary of excruciating physio appointments.I could opt out and put up with this existing painful condition with no power in my right shoulder for the rest of my life but I’ve decided to go for it and take the consequences, bite the bullet and accept the advice of my surgeon who is one of the finest in her field and who won me over by saying I am young enough to have a great chance of a full recovery.
I’m nervous and to be absolutely honest a bit scared at what I have elected to sign on for. This ain’t gonna be easy by any stretch of the imagination and it’s going to bite me hard and long.
In the last month I ,together with Simone have stopped smoking and we have been attending a gym in Edinburgh with a personal trainer twice a week. Mike Heatley has done wonders to help strengthen my back and develop my core muscles again. It’s the first time I’ve been at a gym for years and I’m so feeling the benefits. I’ve been using this window between operations to prepare myself and in all honesty will miss the sessions as I move into the initial healing period with my rotator cuff problem.God only knows how this will affect the writing of the album. I’m hopeful I’ll get a chance to alow the cogs to turn and pontificate on ideas and directions. I’m going to miss my right hand and my keyboard musings are most definitely going to take a lot longer and be a lot more frustrating.
I’m going to miss being involved in the garden for which Simone and I ordered all the seed and gubbings for the other day. The first 4 weeks will be hellish, sleeping upright a nightmare for which I’m going to need a lot of chemical help. It can be done and I’ll be all the better for it in the long run.
The shit grenades I am sure will continue to be thrown and I know I’ll take quite a few sniper attacks in the coming months. Bring it on! I have a strong loving lady with me by my side without whom I most definitely couldn’t deal with all this and the two of us are going to get through this together and in style. As for the doubters, the underminers, the “unlikers” and the cynics- this circle is unbroken.
We are family here. And we are strong.