Bad Bionics

As most of you know, I recently had a pretty serious surgery to replace my shoulder. Sounds weird, right? I mean, really, who gets their shoulder "replaced" like that? Well, if you're bionic, you kinda expect a systems failure at some point. And boy, did it fail!

I should probably tell you that I was a third less humorous than the average person. I had false humor. It's my dorky way of saying a third of my bone, known as the humerus, was replaced with a metal doppelganger. 'Cuz the original was eaten by a really hungry tumor. This new part was held in socket by re-routing a couple muscles. Unfortunately, these muscles were not properly informed of their new role and didn't do a very good job at it. This implant lasted eight years. And by the end of that time, my shoulder looked like this:

My scar is totally sexy, I know, but please try to stay focused.

See how the silhouette is kinda wiggly? That's because a muscle decided it didn't like it's new position working with the metal implant, detached itself, and spent a couple years living off unemployment checks and playing video games in it's mother's basement. Because there was no longer a muscle to keep it in place, the metal head of the implant slowly worked itself out of socket.

Have you ever had a shoulder dislocated? Hurts, right? Well, imagine having a perpetually dislocated shoulder. Not fun. So I went to a specialist to see about fixing the constant holy-crap-I'm-gonna-swear-because-the-pain-is-so-bad-but-I-can't-because-I-have-small-kids feeling. But this guy said there was nothing they could do. Medical science needed to catch up. It went something like this:

Doc: Come back in five years and we'll see what we can do then.
Me: But how do I cope in the meantime? My arm doesn't work.
Doc: Just use your arm less.
Me: (Looking from the doctor to my then-toddler son, who, at that moment was trying with all his chubby-armed might to pull himself up into a chair) Seriously?

So I waited five years. And took lots of pain killers. But Then the constant agony got to the point where I couldn't function. Enough was enough and it was time to find a doctor who would help me, no matter where I had to go.


Stay tuned for more…you know…whenever I get to it...