Good news, everyone!

(Note: I can’t say that without hearing the voice of Professor Farnsworth from Futurama in my head.)

I can draw.

This discovery was not without initial setbacks.

Shortly after my last post I tried drawing, and about two minutes in I lost most of my right-hand strength and couldn’t continue. It seemed very uncharacteristic of the injury, so I figured it was the muscle relaxant finding tension in some muscle groups and shutting it down. I took a nap, slept the rest of that crap off, and woke up crankier than a Model T on a cold morning.

In that mood — tense, irritated, and in significant pain — I sat down to try again. It worked just fine — no nervous wiggles, no dropping the pen, and the lines went pretty much just where I planned for them to. Whether or not that’s where the lines BELONG is an artistic issue rather than a medical one.

Verdict: I’ll be medicating with ibuprofen and caffeine, drawing until it hurts, and then using the muscle relaxants when I’m ready to take a break for a few hours.

Sandra scheduled me for 11:30am tomorrow with the Physical Therapist, which is four days sooner than I’m supposed to go, but I’m all for taking this “waiting” thing and screwing it to the wall sideways. The physical therapist will get an accurate assessment of the state of my injury tomorrow morning, and will determine how soon I’m ready for whatever phase of therapy is supposed to come next. I am NOT going to sit around convalescing for four more days on the instructions of the doctor who offered to “write me a note” so my boss would give me some time off of work.

Pain? I don’t have time for pain.

–Howard

The diagnosis from the doctor is that I have a sprain, not a separation. I guess technically that’s a Type 1 separation (nondisplaced sprain of the AC ligament). This is good news, because it means that ordinary activity, while painful, is not going to tear anything loose.

Probably.

This is where I get angry.

It’s PROBABLY a sprain, not a separation. How does the doctor tell the difference? There are two methods:
1) speed of recovery
2) MRI

If I had this to do over, I would have demanded an MRI. This is my livelihood we’re talking about. Had I been a Major League Baseball player, the initial exam would have included X-rays and an MRI. I just got X-rays. Apparently my doctor doesn’t believe me when I tell him that my right arm feeds my family.

So yeah, I’m a little upset right now. I agree, it’s probably just a sprain, and I’m going to act that way. But the four days I spent convalescing so that the initial diagnosis could be refined could have been much, MUCH more productive (better convalescence, more peace of mind) if I’d had more information up front. The next time (knock on wood) something happens to my right arm, the doctor is going to get a left-handed death-grip on his short and curlies, to be released only when I’ve had every test he can imagine necessary for full diagnosis.

Anyway, here’s the deal: I start physical therapy on Friday, and I start drawing again as soon as I’m done writing this. I’ll have to back off on the Lortab and the Soma anytime I plan to draw, and I’m not good to drive stick for a few days. I have a prescription for 800mg dosages of ibuprofen and for 50mg of something called Ultram, of which the doctor gave me a glowing recommendation, but was unable to supply sufficient detail. I’ll go get a second opinion from Doctor Google before I eat any of that crap.

I appreciate all of your “you’ll be fine, take it easy, don’t try to draw” votes. I’m exercising the executive veto here. I hope you don’t take it personally.

–Howard

I’ve taken no painkillers this morning. No Lortab, no Soma, no caffeine, no Ibuprofen — nothing, not since I popped my last Lortab around midnight.

It hurts a lot.

“It” in this case is more of a hive-minded “them” — my shoulder, my neck, my head, my arm, and my back. It hurt enough that I got drowsy and went back to sleep, where I remained for almost two hours. Now that I’m awake, I can feel “tracks” radiating out from the tip of my shoulder, indicating exactly where the injury originated, and where the outward rippling displaced, tweaked, sprained, strained, jarred, bruised, and/or otherwise “adjusted” the state of nearby bits.

I know this is largely illusion. There are no tracks. This is not the thumbprint of a giant, and the CSI team is not going to be able to use this information to reconstruct the grille of the truck that hit me. This is just pain receptors announcing that signals are coming in five by five.

The doctor is going to get an accurate answer to the “how do you feel?” question, which is what I want to provide, and that’s why I’ve been off meds for almost 12 hours now.

The instructions he provides following diagnosis will almost certainly include “start taking your painkillers again, you idiot,” and I will enthusiastically comply.

–Howard

For some reason the “create a poll” interface keeps disappearing on me. It’s in the little grey box of links I get when I update my journal from the Livejournal website, but that grey box vanishes as the page loads.

The poll was going to be “what will the doctor say today?”

This article has some useful information about separated shoulders, and made for good reading just before I went to bed last night. It seems there are six types of separated shoulders, numbered 1 through 6, and that numbers 4 through 6 almost always require surgery. Type 3 used to get operated on, but is now treated more conservatively. Type 1 and type 2 are treated with a sling, painkillers, and lots of rest.

I suspect I’ll be found possessed of a Type 1 Separation. The X-ray indicated separation, but the tenderness in my shoulder seemed to be in the wrong place for that (on the back instead of the front), which would be consistent with Type 1 if the doctor I saw doesn’t consider Type 1 a separation at all, but a sprain (and that’s kind of supported by the wording on the page I linked). Type 1 means that I’ll be healing up quickly, and with that particular verdict I’ll almost certainly begin drawing again today.

Type 2 means I’ll start drawing again today, but I’ll feel guilty about it.

–Howard