Injured

We went to the zoo Saturday with our friends Kristie & Thomas and their two kids. It’s the first time we’ve been to the zoo with them, it was fun. Benjamin loved their older daughter Emma and has been asking me every day where Emma is. (She is 7). I carried around a bag with my camera & wallet, sunscreen, little wipes pack & extra pullups in it but didn’t really think about it bothering me. Sunday I woke up and my shoulder hurt – I just assumed it was from carrying the bag around Saturday.

Monday I couldn’t lift my arm over my head. Tuesday morning I couldn’t reach around to hook my bra, and by Tuesday night I was in tears. There was no way I could sit or lay that didn’t make my shoulder hurt. Wednesday I called in sick and went to the doctor. He took X-rays of my shoulder and said that he could see calcium deposits, which means I had injured tendons there before. He said either the previous injury is flaring up again but worse this time (that would be tendonitis), or I have torn my rotator cuff. I got some kind of steroid pills and some Lortab. LOL, I’ve never taken Lortab before but I saw him write that prescription and I was like "Thank you!" It is a heavy-duty pain reliever. The only way I got to sleep Tuesday night was by taking 6 ibuprofen. Last night I took a Lortab and didn’t wake up all night.

I took today off work again – it is still very sore and one of the listed side effects of both the steroids and the Lortab is nausea. I haven’t had any yet but I can’t deal with that at work. Plus the doctor told me when I’m on the Lortab I can’t drive or be home alone with the kids. It isn’t hurting so badly now that I think I need the pain pill, but just in case I decided to stay home today. I will probably work tomorrow.

I went to Walgreens and bought an adhesive heat pad which is working pretty well. The doctor also said to keep heat on it, that will promote blood flow which helps with healing.

He said after a couple days of the steroids (which are an anti-inflammatory), if it is tendonitis, then the inflammation will go down and it will stop hurting. If it is a tear, then it will keep hurting and we’ll have to do something else. So hopefully it is not torn, just inflamed, and the pills will make it better. I also got some exercises I need to do. I go back in a week to have it checked on.

When he said it might be a torn rotator cuff, I made a joke about it’s been a long time since I was a pitcher. He said yeah, you always hear of athletes having rotator cuff injuries, but the more common cause is overuse. So just from lifting kids, grocery bags, laundry baskets, etc. I said yup, I do alot of that.

Luckily it is my left shoulder, if I couldn’t move my right arm I don’t know what I’d do!