Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Post-Surgery: Not as Fun as I’d Hoped

By Bob Wire, 8-22-08

Well, it’s been two days since the surgery, and it’s high time for an update.

I haven’t been able to speak to my doctor yet, but Barb gleaned a few details while I was drifting back to consciousness.. Evidently the tear in my rotator cuff was bigger than they’d thought, and required quite a few extra stitches. I also had a large bone spur on my shoulder blade, which explained why my shoulder sounds like a cardboard box full of marbles every time Barb and I get busy.

Also, as I’d feared, they had set up the operating room to work on the right shoulder, which was the wrong shoulder. Jesus, I’m glad I wasn’t having open heart surgery (“Oh my god! This guy’s heart is as big as a lung!”)

The nerve block kept me from feeling my entire left arm and shoulder until the day after.  No pain yet, but when it arrives I know exactly where it will be.  One reason there’s no pain yet is that I’ve got a little plum-sized “pain ball.” It’s nestled in the crook of my arm, slowly releasing its magic into my system.  I love my pain ball.  I pet it.  I stroke it.  I talk to it.  (“I love you, Pain Ball.”)

One of my neighbors is a Reiki Master and has offered to give me Reiki treatments to help speed the healing. Most people think Reiki is a little woo-woo, but I don’t discount anything that allows me to tap into the energy field that surrounds and connects us all.  And the quiet time is very soothing. She insists that I remain clothed, despite my protestations. 

For the next month I have to keep my left arm immobilized, but angled away from my body. To achieve that, I’m strapped into this rig called the SuperSling II Chuck Norris Signature Model. It’s pretty much like having an ottoman attached to my side. Wrapped around that is a neoprene sling containing two ice packs, which Barb has diligently been swapping out every two hours. I look like a freakin’ pack mule, but with a much smaller penis.

Fortunately the band’s schedule is pretty light right now and we don’t have a show until Friday night, September 5th in the Iron Horse parking lot. The reason we can still perform is that David Colledge, our lead guitarist, has offered to step up and play both of our guitar parts.  So he will probably be wearing two guitars and drinking twice as much tequila.  As for me, I’ll be holding myself up with an orthopedic mike stand, trying to remember the words to all the songs through a haze of narcotics.

My beloved pain ball has shrunk down to the size of your average testicle, but it’s still helping. At this point, though, the Pain has announced its presence with authority and I’m working hard on developing an addiction to Oxycontin. In fact, I’m already getting a strange desire to have a talk radio show where I can spout a bunch of phony right-wing horseshit to millions of impressionable losers.

It’s becoming harder to find a comfortable position, but the real key seems to be just to stay still. If only I could. Barb went to work for a few hours this afternoon, leaving me home alone until the kids came home from camp. Naturally, five minutes after she left, the phone rang, the first of an endless series of phone calls this afternoon. Muttering foul curses (I don’t know why I bothered to mutter, no one else was here), I wrenched myself up out of the recliner and hobbled across the room and picked up the handset. After I finished the call I set the phone down, walked back across the room and climbed painfully back into the recliner. I was just settling into an acceptable position when the goddamned phone started ringing again.

Now, you’re probably thinking, why didn’t you bring the phone over to the recliner, Bob? Or why not let the machine pick up? Unfortunately, painkillers are also brainkillers. In my stupor, those options did not occur to me. So, like Pavlov’s dipshit dog, I unleashed a string of filthy obscenities every time the phone rang.

This one-handed typing is wearing me out, and I see it’s time for another pain pill. So I’ll wind this up for now. Thanks to everyone for the supportive emails and phone calls, and maybe I’ll see you at the River City Roots Festival this weekend. I’ll be the guy who looks like Quasimodo on a serious bender.

[Bookmark NewWest.net/BobWire. Doctor’s orders.]

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