Responsible Shoulder

Yep. It's the responsible shoulder. That one, the right one, the one that hurts like all get-out. It's why blogging (or anything involving my right hand/arm/shoulder) is a real pain right now.

Flashback about six months ago, to the Camping and Outdoors Show in East Victoria Park. As you know T and I are selling this little house and splitting our money and buying something each. Trish gets the lion's share of the money and will buy a house/unit/apartment, something she can hopefully own outright. And I am buying a caravan and tow vehicle and will be kitting it out for a LOOOOOOOOOOONG holiday. The C&OS was full of caravans as well as the paraphenalia every camper needs these days.

Please note the delicious ironies richly laid on - in order to get back to nature these days you need a 4WD, a trailer with everything, or else a caravan ditto, a dirt bike or quad bike strapped to one of the vehicles, several hundred gallons of fuel, a generator, port-a-loo, bottled gas (oh yes! Because how else do you cook in a fire ban situation? Irony upon irony...) and in the process of making all that gear the companies involved have probably razed a small third world country's worth of that nature you're going back to...

But - let's layer them some more... In one of the caravans the salespeople had stuck the middle pole for the annex under the bed, to save it getting in the way of people walking by outside. And when the people before us' kids had thoroughly trashed the bed and left the covers all over the show, guess who got a twisted ankle stepping on that pole? Yep, yours truly. Didn't stop there though - I fell forward and because I had a wall to my right, I put out my right hand to catch myself. And a caravan is all angles not always right angles.

So I finished up catching myself by my fingertips, at arm's stretch, almost horizontal. And my shoulder went "ouch." Just a little ouch, almost not worth thinking about. Except it got worse as we walked, and by the time we drove home, it was worth morphine. Wish I'd had some, never mind, by the time we got home paracetamol was just barely managing it.

After three months of still aching I got tired of it all. My doctor, when I booked an appointment, decided it could be one of several things and sent me for an ultrasound. What with contract work and everything, it was another month before I got to the radiologist. And another months before I could get back to the doctor for the news.

So what does an aductor muscle look like, anyway? Apparently it's the short muscle which holds the point of your shoulder down. Well, when you haven't torn it clean offm anyway - which is apparently where I'm at. The muscle has shrunk to about half length, and I now get to see an orthopedic surgeon to see if it's worth re-attaching or else just have a painkiller shot every year or so.

The irony of it of course is that I wanted to go caravanning - which will now have to be done VERY carefully, if at all. Sucks...

And why did I think about this today? Because we drove out to Dwellingup and the South Dandalup Dam for a BBQ lunch, Ted style. I.e. Yummsville. Several kinds of sausages, onions in red wine vinegar and fried, sweet potato, sweet corn, mediterranean salads, and all the good gear. And it took ages to get home cos there was so much caravan and RV and trailers-with-bikes-and-quads traffic, and some total loser cop aiming speedguns at traffic that was crawling at barely above walking pace on open road. And when we got home I realised that driving and climbing around with a busted-up shoulder was probably not one of my more pellucid or brilliant moments...

Ah well...