Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Shoulder MRI

Last fall while hiking with the kids and the DesMarteau family on Kenosha pass, Andrew asked me to carry him up on my shoulders, so I obliged. When I lifted him up, I messed up my right shoulder. The doctor suspects that I have a torn labrum, which is the soft tissue in the shoulder socket where tendons connect. After several months of exercises I regained strength, but every time I do something as simple as throw hard with my right arm, I re-aggravate it. Today I had an MR Arthrogram, and MRI with a dye injected into the shoulder joint to help show the injury. They start with CT scan, and then inject the dye. They had trouble getting the dye in the right spot so the had to repeat this about 6 times, jamming a needle into my shoulder each time. Then I spent about 20 minutes in the MRI. Now I'm left with a sore shoulder and wondering what the doc will tell me tomorrow. Most likely, I'll need arthroscopic surgery to repair it, and 2-3 months of recovery after that. I won't even be able to run for the first 1-2 months of recovery, so I'm planning to postpone surgery (if needed) til after the Pikes Peak Ascent in August.

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