Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Rotator Cuffs But Were Afraid to Ask

My two-handed typing days, it seems, are about over.

As it stands right now, a week from today a surgeon will make some tiny cuts in my left shoulder, wiggle a little camera around in there, remodel a couple of bones, and stitch up my torn rotator cuff. Then he'll send me home with a pain pump, a gigantic ice cuff connected to a cooler, a sling, and some sort of bolster-on-a-belt designed to keep my arm out to my side. Which pretty much nips my newfound running obsession in the bud. (5K racing, we hardly knew ye...) As well as the aforementioned two-handed typing.

This all comes as something of a surprise, and not just to me.

Apparently determining why a shoulder hurts is like trying to figure out what's making a newborn cry. You put the baby down for a nap, pick it back up, feed it, burp it, change its diaper, feed it again, bounce it around on your forearm, give it a pacifier, drive it around in the car, call your mom and ask what she thinks, change its diaper again, burst into tears yourself, and finally decide it has colic.

With a shoulder, it's not all that different. First you try Aleve. Later you try more Aleve, and distracting yourself. If that doesn't work -- and it won't -- you try physical therapy. When all that fails, you have an MRI.

Now, as some of you may remember, I attempted to have an MRI last week. Such was not to be, however, so it was not until two days ago that I finally got the chance to be left alone inside a metal tube with a jackhammer banging in my ears.

The noise and the claustrophobia and the nagging neurotic concern about what would happen if the MRI technician was a sadist and left me in there alone with my hands strapped to my sides? Those actually weren't the worst parts. The worst part was the part before all that.

To figure out why the newborn is crying a shoulder continues to hurt when it should have stopped already, you have to put dye inside it. You probably would rather I not describe how the dye gets in there, so I will spare you. What I will share is that the phrase "Gosh ... 99 times out of 100 this thing goes in without a hitch" is not what I was hoping to hear. My butt may be as big as a tractor wheel and my thighs may be great whites, but apparently my shoulder joint is dainty and petite.

Eventually, though, my shoulder was full of an iodine-and-saline cocktail (I am pretty sure it was on the rocks), and a technician shoved me and it into the MRI tube. I was actually quite excited when they handed me radio headphones and asked me my favorite station, but it was impossible to hear NPR over the MRI steel-drum sounds, and I was not a happy camper.

Still, it ended soon enough, and they sent me off with a CD (probably the most expensive one I've ever touched) showing the inner workings of my diminutive shoulder.

Wednesday, I handed the CD to my friendly orthopedist. Thirty minutes later, having watched it on her computer (I forgive her if she checked in with TMZ while she was at it -- I mean, how interesting can the inside of a shoulder be?), she came back and, using her little finger and a pretend knife, demonstrated how my infraspinatus tendon had been cut halfway through, presumably by my fall in California.

No one, most particularly me, had expected this. The prevailing theory was that I'd torn some cartilage. Which just goes to show that maybe, uh, doctors, uh, guess sometimes. (Which reminds me of the time a few years back when one of my pupils got way bigger than the other. (Long story. And yes, it DID involve an MRI.) The doctor in the ER looked at it, scratched his head, said he'd be back in a few minutes, left, came back, and told me he'd just pulled out a bunch of his old textbooks to try to figure out what was going on. "Hell if I know," he said. I loved that man.)

Sometimes doctors advise people with partial rotator cuff tears to try more physical therapy. But before I could even ask, my orthopedist told me, "If it were me, I'd have surgery on this one." Yes, you're right -- I don't have any way of knowing whether she was wearing her "trust me --I made a 100 on rotator cuffs in med school" hat or her "hell if I know" hat. But she has me convinced.

So, after another 45 minutes or so of waiting, she sent a surgeon in to chat with me. This guy met my Number One requirement in a doctor: I understood everything he was telling me. That, and he said I was "almost guaranteed" not to have pain anymore once I got past the surgery and the rehab. (Shhhhh ... I can hear what you're thinking.) So I said yes, and we set a date: May 22, 2008.

Next up was the surgeon's nurse, who also happened to be his wife. Contrary to her happy-go-lucky husband, Mrs. Surgeon made this sound like it would not exactly be a walk in a park. I learned, for example, the following:

1) I won't be able to drive until I finish taking pain medicine. Given what sort of things the surgeon said he was going to be doing while he was in there, I suspect that means I will need a chauffeur for awhile.

2) "Most of the ladies find it more comfortable not to wear a bra for a week." Oh really. Well then most of the "ladies" must have ripped their rotator cuffs while they were still girls, with young and perky girl-breasts. What are old hags grownups like me supposed to do -- wear a strapless bra? Maybe that's why they'll be giving me pain pills.

3) I will need to wear a sling and this pillow thing on the side of my waist for, oh, about three of the hottest weeks of the year. Between that and the lack of chest supplementation support, I feel pretty already.

Once I got home, I figured out some other stuff.

Like, there's no way I'm going to be able to continue training for a 5K race on June 28 if I have to run braless with a sling and a shelf around my waist. But if I put the surgery off until after the race, I'll have to wear the same paraphernalia on the beach in mid-July for a couple of weeks. (Maybe I could get one of those cigarette-girl setups and prop it on the pillow and sell seashells at the seashore.)

And that it's going to be sort of hard to do my job, seeing as how it involves typing only about, oh, all the time. Unless I can find a keyboard with the left-hand keys about two feet to the left of the right-hand keys.

And that it's going to be harder that it already is for me to get meals on the table and clean clothes in the drawers. How do you chop an onion with one hand?

And that I'm going to have to become adept at posting all sorts of visuals real quick if I want to continue blogging with one hand.

And that before Mrs. Surgeon became Mrs. Surgeon, she was just the surgeon's nurse and there was a different Mrs. Surgeon, who is now known as the former Mrs. Surgeon. Coincidence? I think not.

With all this newfound knowledge, I decided today I wanted to stall get a second opinion, and maybe a different surgeon. Yes, he met my Number One requirement of Being Understandable, but Being a Nice Guy is way up there too, and in my book philanderers generally aren't. Maybe that's prudish. But it's my money and my rotator cuff, and I have a perfect right to make a moral statement with them if I so choose. Besides, I heard from two different people that he's had some unhappy customers.

So now I have an appointment with a second surgeon. This one is a Shoulder Guy. But then of course the doctor at the ER that time was an Eye Guy, and we all know how that turned out.

Meanwhile, I plan to spend this weekend looking for a one-armed bra and the world's widest keyboard.

Every Family Needs a Few Secrets

It's Friday night, the end of my first week at my new job. I'm sitting on the sofa in my usual spot, sipping white wine and watching David Brooks and Mark Shields talk about Hilary and Obama on the News Hour. (I guess by the week's political standards, that makes me an out-of-touch elitist.) Billy's on the way home with pizza, and all's right with the world.

Except for one thing. Too tired to change out of my work clothes, I've still got on my professional outfit. And because the day's blouse demanded it, that outfit includes my Water Wear Push-Up Pads.

If you are not familiar with these personal enhancement devices, you're either Chesty McGillicuddy or about to declare me your new best friend.

Lost a lot of weight one too many times? Birthed a baby or two? Nursed one for more than 15 minutes in your life? Never had boobs in the first place? Check these out.



Here's a closer look at what you actually do with your Water Wear Push-Up Pads.



I became the proud owner of my pair last summer when it became unavoidably clear that I desperately needed them for the pool, and not as flotation devices. Since then, I've learned they come in handy when clothes require a certain, um, volume.

Now, I must warn you: Water Wear Push-Up Pads can get a bit uncomfortable after awhile. So while I'm hanging with my homies David and Mark -- everybody else was in the kitchen -- I reach in and pull them out.

It's been a long week, and I'm tired. So I didn't feel like walking into my bedroom right then to hide them put them back in my underwear drawer where they belong. Instead, I stuck them between the sofa cushions.

Which is where I leave them when I head to the kitchen to eat my pizza.

And where Ben finds them about a half-hour later.

"Maaaaahhhhhhhmmmmmm!" he yells. I'm thinking he just sat in cat vomit or something.

"What?"

He dangles a pad between two fingers like it's a dying rat.

I grab it and begin to apologize profusely. (Okay, I also laughed a lot and realized I had post material. But I also apologized.) And then he says:

"I don't blame you."

He. Doesn't. Blame. Me. My teenage son thinks it's perfectly understandable that I'd want to pad my bra.

He claims all he meant was that, seeing as how I work with a lot of waaaaaaay younger, stylish women, it was understandable I'd want to look my, um, best.

I don't believe him, of course, but I didn't really want to pursue it further.

Some things are better left unsaid.

Emily Latella Goes to Work

If you're as young as you feel, then tonight I am 103.

Today was my first day at my new job, the first real live sit-at-a-desk-on-a-regular-schedule job I've had in 18 years.

Lots of things have changed since then, some of them for the better.

Take pantyhose. The last time I had an office job, you were expected to wear them, at least if you were female. Thank God that's over. Frankly, they'd have had to give me a major signing bonus and a corner office if that were still a requirement.

But some things have gotten worse. One of them is my memory. Another is that something called "technology" has absolutely overrun America's workplaces. The stuff is like kudzu, for God's sake.

My sieve-like brain and I have been at home since 1990 doing just fine with a pen and paper, thank you very much. I mean, sure -- I've got e-mail, and I know how to Google, and I actually even set up this blog all by myself. But as far as most other technology goes, I've either stuck my head in the sand or called on my personal assistants (aka Bob, Billy, and Ben).

Unfortunately, they were not allowed to come to work with me today. Which meant I was out there all by myself in a big wide wired world. Just me and my brain, which was about as useful as those old pantyhose. I felt like Emily Latella, only I could hear.

Let me tell you a story that shows what happens to gals like Emily and me when you put us in the modern workplace. Let's call it "Fun With Phones."

Chapter 1: I see a phone on my desk. I pick up the receiver. It has a dial tone. All's right with the world.

Ch. 2: Mid-morning, a nice man -- we'll call him Mr. Telephone -- comes by my cube. "I'm here to tell you your extension," he says. That's nice, I think. Actually, it's the first time I'd realized that I only knew the first three digits of my number. I didn't let on.

Ch. 3: "It's ####," Mr. Telephone tells me. I write the words "extension is" on my pad. (I'm keeping a running list of everything anyone tells me because I'm a momnesiac. If that pad should spontaneously combust overnight, I can't ever go back.)

Ch. 4: Feeling all chipper and girl-on-the-go, I immediately asked if there was a list of other people's extensions.

What I meant was whether there was an old-fashioned piece of paper with extensions printed on it. Silly me. They don't have those anymore.

Ch. 5: "I don't know of one," Mr. Telephone says. "But I can show you how to find it online."

Ch. 6: Mr. Telephone tells me to type in a Web address, which leads me to a site where I can search for people's numbers. He suggests I make this site a "favorite." I say a little prayer as I click on "bookmark," as I'm not really sure if that's the same thing as a favorite or not.

Ch. 7: I thank Mr. Telephone, and he departs.

Ch. 8: I look back at my pad. THERE'S NO PHONE NUMBER WRITTEN THERE.

In my eagerness to figure out how to find phone numbers for other people, I had forgotten to write down my own.

Nor had I written down Mr. Telephone's real name, or what his title was. Frankly, if he'd magically appeared at my elbow right then, I'm not sure I would have recognized him.

When in doubt, call Bob. As I dialed I thought I heard a few random digits knocking around in my brain. When he answered, I whispered, "Help me figure out what my phone number is. I think maybe it's--"

He cut me off. "I'm looking at it right here on my phone. You just called me from it."

Well, what will they think of next!!! I jotted down that number. It bore absolutely not one digit's resemblance to the number I thought I remembered.

Not long afterwards, my new boss came by to give me the four-digit number I need to access my voice mail. (Note to technology people: could you maybe just once give something a five-digit number? If every number that you need to participate in modern life has four digits, how on earth are we supposed to tell them apart? It's like telling George Foreman's kids apart.)

I told her I hadn't yet set up my voice mail, so she gave me a (four-digit) number to call to start that process and an "option" to choose. We return now to "Fun With Phones."

Chapter 9: At the end of the option was a human -- we'll call him Mr. Voice Mail. (I guess Mr. Telephone is really busy helping people remember their extensions.) I asked him what to do to set up my voice mail.

Ch. 10: Mr. Voice Mail gives me yet another four-digit number to call and a three-digit password to use for something -- I'm not sure what.

Ch. 11: I tried these two numbers. Nothing happened.

Ch. 12: I called Mr. Voice Mail back and asked what to do. He says he'll get back to me.

Ch. 13: Mr. Voice Mail calls back with yet another four-digit number and the same three-digit number. Then he tells me to call "Rob at 5600" if I have any further problems.

Ch. 14: I try the new batch of numbers, and a recorded female voice welcomes me to the voice mail system. She tells me this procedure will help me "increase communication efficiency." Oh, really?

Ch. 15: When it comes time to set my new voice mail password (the one my boss had given me wasn't good enough, I guess), Recorded Female Voice helpfully suggests that I "may want to write it down for reference." She does not mention tattooing, which I suspect was an oversight.

I also had "Fun With Computers" and "Fun With Parking" and "Fun With Remembering Where the Bathroom Is." But those are stories for another day.

And if I forget to tell them, well then ... never mind.

Mom Is The Man

So much for posting every day in April.

I started the month with such good intentions. Since I begin my new job tomorrow, I thought I'd be able to cut myself some slack toward the end of the month if if I already had 13 posts under my belt before Tax Day.

So I was going to post every day last week, and then I was going to get my life TOTALLY and COMPLETELY in order so that from this point forward I'd never have to do ANYTHING else but go to work and blog and give my kids good advice. This was probably not a realistic goal, given that fresh produce is perishable and clothes get dirty and that there are only like, umm, maybe 713 piles of papers around here that need going through, which would take a whole lot longer than a week.

But that was the plan. Unfortunately, things did not go according to it.

Instead, life happened. My husband's car died (as in, forever) and my son's car was totaled. And so I spent practically every minute this past week shopping for two cars.

There are people out there for whom buying two cars is a matter of running by the Lexus dealership, pointing their index finger, and saying "I'll taking this one and that one." There are other people for whom even one totally unreliable deathtrap is way more than they can afford. The Bird family is somewhere in between.

My goal was to buy two safe, reliable, not embarrassingly ugly cars for less than $15,000.

Now listen. You're going to have to stop rolling on the floor laughing if you intend to finish reading this.

Yes, that was a ridiculously optimistic goal. But I didn't know that Monday when I started this quest.

I figured it out pretty quick, though.

Here's the thing. There are two kinds of cars in this world -- those that depreciate quickly and those that don't. The ones that depreciate really fast do that because they really aren't very good. The ones that hold their value do so because they had a whole lot of value to start with.

So if you want a certified Honda Civic with 40,000 miles and an incredible warranty, you're only going to pay a couple of thousand less than you would pay for a brand new one. But if you want a Pontiac that's so unreliable Consumer Reports sends a woman in sensible shoes over to lock you in your house so you won't buy it, you can get that for chicken feed.

And another thing. If you want the absolute best in airbags and stability control, you've got to buy new.

And if you want really good gas mileage, you've got to buy little. And little + old = not really what I want my kids driving.

Along about Thursday, I decided that if I was going to get two cars of any price by sunset Friday -- my goal -- I was going to have to get a lot less choosy. I'd take safe over low maintenance costs. I'd take up-front price over great gas mileage. And I decided not to worry much about how many miles these cars had.

Even with those concessions, by lunch Friday I still had no cars. But by 1:30, I'd bought a 10-year-old Volvo with incredibly high miles for a fabulous price. Actually, it was only the parts of the car you could see that were 10 years old. I bought it from a Volvo mechanic, who'd replaced pretty much all of its innards. And even 10 years ago, Volvo was putting bunches of airbags in its cars. That took care of Billy's automotive needs.

Buying a car is a heady thing. It makes you want to go out and buy another. Which is exactly what I did.

At 3:30, Billy and I met an old guy in a Sam's Club parking lot and bought his Mercury Grand Marquis right out from under him. It's not a particularly sexy car, but my parents have had two of them, and I know they hang in there for the long haul. Plus they have a trunk the size of my kitchen. I felt confident that this one was in good shape as the seller assured me he'd been having the oil changed every 4,000 miles at "the Wal-Mark."

And for Bob, a Grand Marquis is a step up. He's been driving a 1986 BMW with about 165,000 miles on it whose interior thermometer constantly registered -22 degrees despite the fact that it overheated every time he drove it. (It's hard to be punctual when you're never sure how much time to factor in for standing next to the road waiting for your car to cool off.)

Friday night, I was the man as far as the men around here were concerned. And I was exhausted. Like lights-out-and-sound-asleep-at-9 wiped out.

Not surprisingly, I was unable to get my life TOTALLY and COMPLETELY in order over the weekend.

Maybe after work tomorrow.

How to Know For Sure You're Middle Aged

I have no illusions that I am a spring chicken.

My birth certificate and driver's license say I'm 48, and I'm not about to try to hide it. I've got lines, saggy upper arms, some gray hairs, blah, blah, blah -- in other words, I am More magazine's target audience.

But that's just what people see on the outside. Inside (except for the times I see teenagers speeding in my neighborhood or young women with their thongs riding above their low-rise jeans or kids skateboarding without helmets and pads) I'm about 25.

Except for the days I'm 15.

And the occasional afternoons when I'm 9.

Which is why what happened yesterday stung a bit.

I'm about to go back to work. Like, in an office. I've been a freelance writer and editor for awhile now, but as of April 14, I will be a real live part-time employee, with a parking decal, a W-4, and my very own taupe cube I can decorate according to my personal style. (Clutter is my signature look.)

Rest assured you will hear a lot more about that in coming posts, as I already run short of hours every single day even without spending half my week away from home. But what I want to tell you is this:

Yesterday, as my new boss was walking me out of the building, I asked her a question. And she answered me, "Yes, ma'am."

Oh. my. Gawd.

We are going to have to nip this in the bud.