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And for my next trick...
Nov. 6th, 2015 10:30 pm...I skip an NHS waiting list and compress 3 months of work into 3 weeks.
I've unexpectedly got a date for my shoulder surgery before the end of the year. In fact, it's due before the end of the month. Surgery scheduled for Thursday 26th of November and then my bff B is going to pick me up and I will stay at hers overnight - although she's apparently come out in sympathy for me and has a frozen shoulder so she may not be able to drive and pick me up if that hasn't resolved and it might be a pick up by her husband instead. Then it's home to rattle around my flat alone and home I'm able to function/rely on the kindness of friends if I can't cook. My parents will have to drive and pick me up in the car for Christmas as I won't be able to manage luggage on the train as usual which is sad, as I always enjoy the Christmas-train home, the atmosphere is always lovely. The one advantage is if I am struggling alone, they can come and collect me earlier than I planned to go back, although that would mean I miss Burning the Clocks/Brighton's Winter Solstice celebration which I had intended to make a lantern for this year.
I think I've explained before, but the surgery is to relieve ACJ impingement, as here, and may also involve repair a bicep tear, as here.
I was injured 6 years ago when a twat knocked me off my bike at traffic lights - I was in the cycle lane, he was in left lane turning left and didn't check his mirrors. Smashed into me, waited for me to jump up, drag my bike from under his car, and then he drove off. After being told to rest it after a visit to A&E (and my first ever x-ray) it stopped hurting and I thought that was that. 2 years later I took up swimming again and it emerged my shoulder was basically in the wrong place with massive muscular weakness around that shoulder. So I had another x-ray, then referred to shoulder clinic. Shoulder clinic offered me steroid injection or physio. Concluding physio would treat cause and not symptoms, I chose physio. 3 years of physio, 3 steroid injections, 2 ultrasounds, 2 further x-rays, and an MRI and it's still fucked - and not for any particularly clear reasons. All the x-rays, ultrasounds and MRI could say was "maybe" my bicep tendon has torn, maybe the joint has some growth impinging it, and maybe the joint it out of alignment. Maybe. So surgery it is.
I'm quite anxious - after a consultation in October I was told the waiting list was in excess of 3 months so I settled in for a long wait. I think the sudden date has contributed to my anxiety as I just wasn't ready for it. I'm also a little anxious about having a general anaesthetic - I've had that twice before at the dentist but the last time I was about 12 and came round from the anaesthetic crying my eyes out on my Dad's chest so I'm embarrassed by that, and also a little worried about semi-conscious me having nobody there to cry upon.
Mostly I'm worried about the pain. They won't know whether they need to reattach the bicep until they look inside the shoulder, if they do it's significantly longer recovery and more immobility which inevitably means more pain.
And I'm anxious about putting my PhD on hold for at least a month, and possibly longer. And I'm stressed right now because I'm working flat out to get all my teaching responsibilities fulfilled before I have to hand over (3 classes of marking, rescheduling two seminars) and lots of admin/PhD stuff (writing 2 abstracts now because there'll be no time later, presenting at a research in progress event in order to promote my work across the university/in a newly established research group, contacting wished-for external examiner to ask if they will examine me in the summer, scheduling completion with supervisors) and just generally compressing the next 3 months of stuff into 3 weeks.
It's all sort of petrifying. Although it has just occurred to me that once this is done, it'll be a clear run from January to the end of my PhD. Which is sort of exhilarating.
If I don't die under anaesthetic, which I've convinced myself I will. Drama queen.
I've unexpectedly got a date for my shoulder surgery before the end of the year. In fact, it's due before the end of the month. Surgery scheduled for Thursday 26th of November and then my bff B is going to pick me up and I will stay at hers overnight - although she's apparently come out in sympathy for me and has a frozen shoulder so she may not be able to drive and pick me up if that hasn't resolved and it might be a pick up by her husband instead. Then it's home to rattle around my flat alone and home I'm able to function/rely on the kindness of friends if I can't cook. My parents will have to drive and pick me up in the car for Christmas as I won't be able to manage luggage on the train as usual which is sad, as I always enjoy the Christmas-train home, the atmosphere is always lovely. The one advantage is if I am struggling alone, they can come and collect me earlier than I planned to go back, although that would mean I miss Burning the Clocks/Brighton's Winter Solstice celebration which I had intended to make a lantern for this year.
I think I've explained before, but the surgery is to relieve ACJ impingement, as here, and may also involve repair a bicep tear, as here.
I was injured 6 years ago when a twat knocked me off my bike at traffic lights - I was in the cycle lane, he was in left lane turning left and didn't check his mirrors. Smashed into me, waited for me to jump up, drag my bike from under his car, and then he drove off. After being told to rest it after a visit to A&E (and my first ever x-ray) it stopped hurting and I thought that was that. 2 years later I took up swimming again and it emerged my shoulder was basically in the wrong place with massive muscular weakness around that shoulder. So I had another x-ray, then referred to shoulder clinic. Shoulder clinic offered me steroid injection or physio. Concluding physio would treat cause and not symptoms, I chose physio. 3 years of physio, 3 steroid injections, 2 ultrasounds, 2 further x-rays, and an MRI and it's still fucked - and not for any particularly clear reasons. All the x-rays, ultrasounds and MRI could say was "maybe" my bicep tendon has torn, maybe the joint has some growth impinging it, and maybe the joint it out of alignment. Maybe. So surgery it is.
I'm quite anxious - after a consultation in October I was told the waiting list was in excess of 3 months so I settled in for a long wait. I think the sudden date has contributed to my anxiety as I just wasn't ready for it. I'm also a little anxious about having a general anaesthetic - I've had that twice before at the dentist but the last time I was about 12 and came round from the anaesthetic crying my eyes out on my Dad's chest so I'm embarrassed by that, and also a little worried about semi-conscious me having nobody there to cry upon.
Mostly I'm worried about the pain. They won't know whether they need to reattach the bicep until they look inside the shoulder, if they do it's significantly longer recovery and more immobility which inevitably means more pain.
And I'm anxious about putting my PhD on hold for at least a month, and possibly longer. And I'm stressed right now because I'm working flat out to get all my teaching responsibilities fulfilled before I have to hand over (3 classes of marking, rescheduling two seminars) and lots of admin/PhD stuff (writing 2 abstracts now because there'll be no time later, presenting at a research in progress event in order to promote my work across the university/in a newly established research group, contacting wished-for external examiner to ask if they will examine me in the summer, scheduling completion with supervisors) and just generally compressing the next 3 months of stuff into 3 weeks.
It's all sort of petrifying. Although it has just occurred to me that once this is done, it'll be a clear run from January to the end of my PhD. Which is sort of exhilarating.
If I don't die under anaesthetic, which I've convinced myself I will. Drama queen.