I'm not sure when it started, but sometime in the middle of the night I rolled over and felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder. For many years I've had an issue with that joint, diagnosed several years back as calcium deposits. Usually it meant some ouch when I twisted to put on a shirt or such, but it never really made much of a difference to my day to day. I could still play tennis and pick up heavy boxes at the foodbank where I volunteer. So like the other aches and pains we all deal with, I merely cataloged it and got on with my life.
Then one day in the spring I was driving back from an appointment. When I went to reach out to touch the dashboard I realized I couldn't lift my arm. At the bottom end my hand was fine, but raising the whole appendage was all but impossible. I had to lean forward with my elbow tucked in and extend my wrist. I felt like the robot on "Lost in Space," the one that waves his arms around yelling "Danger, Will Robinson!"
I took some pain killers, consulted Dr. Google, and the next morning started some simple home PT for "shoulder impingement." It got better, and within a week I was back to my usual routine. A few months later, the same affliction, the same remediation, the same result. But this time? This was different. It was made worse by the fact that we were on holiday for two weeks in Korea, and the bed I was in was in an Airbnb in Busan. It was puzzling because I could think of nothing specific that caused the problem. Yes, I had had on a small lightweight backpack the day before, but it just held a few sweaters and an extra phone battery. Indeed, that night my wife snapped a pic of me cooking Korean BBQ at our table with me flipping the meat over. So at that moment in time, I was good to go,
But that morning I saw stars every time I raised my arm. I couldn't wash my hair, couldn't tie my shoes, couldn't thread my belt through the loops. Any movement or twisting of my shoulder caused me to wince. Not wanting to curtail our plans, I quaffed a punch of pills and headed out to see some sites. And I willingly ceded backpack duties to my wife.
I'm right-handed, and that part of me worked fine, but biology dictates that my hand is connected to my shoulder. I could operate my phone only if I held it low with my right elbow tucked in. Eating lunch was almost impossible: I resorted to lifting my right arm up with my left, and holding it up at the elbow so I could get to my plate. I tried using chopsticks with my left hand, but that was a disaster. If that was the only way I could eat I would obviously starve. Some people have the good fortune to ambidextrous; in this situation I was the opposite. Call it unbidextrous.
We thought some cold therapy might help, so we stopped at the local Hypermart, a sort of Korean Target. But the large freezer packs they had were suitable only for a cooler. My wife thought of a brilliant workaround, so we headed to the grocery aisle. Had you stopped into our apartment at night you would have seen me planning out our next day's activities with a bag of frozen sweet potatoes strapped to my arm.
Thankfully time heals most. That plus a few days of pills gave me back some flexibility. Heading home was a challenge, as lifting our suitcases was tough. But like Blanche DeBois, we depended on the kindness of strangers along the way and made it work. Once home a visit to the doc and shot in my shoulder accelerated the healing, and I can report that I'm back to normal, whatever that is. As an associate once put it, the older I get my body is more and more like an old bluegrass band. Every now and again one of the guys steps forward to take a solo, then melts back into the group. I guess it was my shoulder's turn to do a little pickin'.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford is back to full strength. For now. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
