Shoulder Update

I'm beginning to feel like this is a never ending circle of assessments, appointments, physiotherapy and MRIs.  And all I want is to get better and go back to my life!

I saw the orthopaedic surgeon yesterday for my shoulder.  She reviewed my MRI results - there are no tears in any of the muscles or ligaments of the shoulder.  There is a cyst on the head of my humorous, but it is consistent with the anchors placed during my two shoulder surgeries for the rotator cuff.  This is good news - no tears = no need for surgery. 

So where does that lead us??

Orthopaedic agreed with my physiotherapist's diagnosis of a possible brachial plexus injury.  And to see if this is the case, another MRI of my cervical spine has been ordered.  I'm already having an MRI on my head on November 7th as my follow up  from my decompression surgery, however the head shots only go to C2 at the most.  The brachial plexus anchors from C4 to C6 and T1. 

Because I am still in inconsistent pain and it is not fully diagnosed or controlled, orthopaedic said no return to work until she sees the MRI results in early December.  (Yes folks, it takes 2 weeks for the radiologists to read our MRIs after the scans are done, and then allow about a week for the report to electronically cross the hospital parking lot to her office, get downloaded and placed in my file.) If it is a brachial plexus injury then the orthopaedic will be sending a report back to Dr. Gentili and I'll be heading back to Toronto... They don't deal with it here unfortunately.   She advised my physiotherapist to start work hardening for a prospective return to work, if I can tolerate it.  My pain is so intermittent that this will be an experience.  Difficult, easy, painful, don't know how it will be.  I'm on my way to physio this morning to report to Bee.

Luckily I saw my family dr. in the afternoon yesterday as well and he ordered the C-spine MRI with a 10 day window, instead of the up to 12 week wait.  He recommended that they have my C-spine done at the same time as my head MRI - I doubt it is possible, but I can only hope the booking clerk can fit both scans in on the same day!

But gotta run!! I'll report on my lunch with my best friend and phyio's reaction to the orthopaedic's notes later!