The ortho finally caught up with me today. He mentioned this word—subluxation. Rarely am I tossed a word that I don’t even have a vague idea of what it means. You know, context clues and all that. Well, I had no idea what the word meant. I asked him, he got sidetracked about explaining what the resulting injury could be.
Let me back up. Basically, ortho thinks there’s a tear in my labrum. What’s a labrum, you ask? Well. The shoulder is a ball and socket joint, like the hip joint. Only the shoulder joint is more shallow to allow for greater range of movement. This range of movement sacrifies stability because of the shallow socket part of the joint. To help with this, the socket has this gasket-type ligament around the outside edge. This gasket is the labrum. So when the ortho talked about subluxation, he meant the shoulder coming out of the socket, but not all the way. A tear could be created on the ball’s return to the socket or the part-dislocation-whatever caused by a tear already there (from repeated actions over time such as a raquet sport—done that—or a throwing sport—done that too—or any sport that uses the arm/shoulders a lot—fencing, d’you think?). Anyway, when there’s a tear, the flapping tissue can get caught between the ball and socket and cause pain and/or inflammation. It causes certain types of pain and a “catching” sensation with certain movements. A labrum tear is hard to diagnose and treatment options cover the range from physical therapy to surgery.
Ortho thinks I have a labrum tear. He’s scheduling me for an MRI with a contrast dye injection (in order to see the tear better) and then referring me straight to the surgeon. Why? He says I’ve already done all the other treatment options: physical therapy, ice, rest, anti-imflammatory medication, cortisone injection. So there’s a fairly decent chance I’ll be getting surgery. Arthroscopic, but surgery nonetheless.
Did I mention this takes four to six weeks to recover from? And that’s just to start the PT? (If I recall correctly, which I might not right now, since I’m trying not to be cross eye from the Seroquel that’s kicking in). That’s a long time without fencing.
On the up side, I guess I can do the 3 month long basic EMT class with no wilderness module while I can’t fence. Though it all still sucks monkey balls.
Oh. And I’m allergic, so says ortho, to xylocaine. At least, the reaction I had (throat swelling, difficulty breathing) to the cortisone shot sorta says that, since people don’t have reactions to cortisone and that’s what they use to treat allergic reactions. Now I get a big fancy ALERT sticker about not using xylocaine. A bigger sticker even than the one for Skelaxin!
Speaking of Seroquel, those little tiny pink pills have been leaping out of my hand lately. I had witnesses tonight, I swear. Last night I didn’t even know it’d fallen out until the following morning when I found it on the coffee table. No wonder I chattered on and on last night and fidgeted in bed instead of falling asleep. Poor Nathan. He tried to explain what he does to fall asleep (he tells himself stories) and I said that only puts him to sleep because his stories suck.
Seroquel is like some sort of evil truth serum. You can’t even edit your comments. Nathan’s writing doesn’t suck, but my soften-the-snarkiness-o-meter does, indeed, suck.
Anyway, as the seroquel made it to my digestive system and is now circulating about my body and penetrating the blood-brain barrier, I must stumble to my bed.