Shoulder Operation by Aaron Pearce
On July 20th 2000 I had an operation on my right shoulder. I went to The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (Wonford) England on July 19th and came out of hospital on July 26th.
I had my right shoulder blade fused to the back of my ribcage. The surgeons took bone grafts from the back left side of my pelvis. This was to fuse my shoulder blade to the back of my ribs. To do this, they had to drill holes through my shoulder blade - wires were put through the holes and wrapped around my ribs, with bone grafts in place too, to hold my shoulder blade to the back of my ribs. The operation took around two and a half hours and I was in hospital for a week.
On the day of the operation, I didn't feel much pain; probably due to the morphine which made me sleepy for the day. On July 21st, the day after my operation, I was in a lot more pain and discomfort. My bone graft hurt more than my shoulder did. This was because of the anesthetic wearing off. As the days went on, the pain slowly went away; the painkillers helped a lot.
I had to wear a splint to hold my arm in place for 9 weeks; this was to make sure that the shoulder blade fused to the back of the ribs. Two months after I came out of hospital I had my splint taken off and was given a sling to wear for a few weeks.
I found after the operation, I had allot more use of my arm and was glad I did it. In 2001, after the first operation, I was telling everyone i was definatly going to have the other arm done.. it's now 2005 and I haven't had it done! For two reasons really, 1st being, leg strength; I found that being in hospital bed for 4 days straight took a little leg strength away. The 2nd reason, just the pain!
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