My Toughest Fight: Shoulder Surgery at 38 years old PART 1

{I am writing this series while recovering from surgery. I am three weeks out from the operation and I've got some time on my hands. I hope this story can inform and inspire anyone that is suffering shoulder problems.}

It could've been that horse that bucked me off when I was fourteen, it could've been recklessly wrestling my brother. Maybe it was the backyard brawls or the drunken arm wrestling. How about spending most of my teenage skateboarding career eating concrete? Or my summer of surfing that I spent mostly underwater and limped away from with staples in the back of my head and stitches in my foot. Could've been any one of the forgotten moments of youth, but somewhere along the way I tore the labrum in my right shoulder. 

I might not remember the initial injury but I do remember the first dislocation, well actually it was a subluxation but we'll get to the full dislocations later. I was in gym class at sixteen years old and I tried to throw a ball as hard as I could. I felt a terrible movement inside my shoulder and my arm fell limp to my side. It felt like my arm had popped out and then sucked right back in again. It hurt like hell but I was too ashamed or prideful to ask for help so I just went on with my day and pretended nothing happened. Looking back now I should've gone and gotten it checked out but you know what they say about hindsight.

As my teen years passed and I tried to learn to be an adult my shoulder would subluxate a few times a year. If I tried to throw a powerful right cross it would slip out and back in. Or if I reached behind me it would slip and I would scream in pain. It became a part of my daily life, protecting the shoulder. 

When I was 26 my son was born and I started training in boxing seriously for the first time. Instead of dabbling in the sport I became a full time boxing gym rat. I knew my shoulder was messed up but I still had never been to a doctor about it. I made a lot of assumptions and just hoped that I could make it work. 

I got away with it for a few years, the shoulder didn’t give me much trouble. I trained religiously and worked my way onto a competition team, sparring with the best and trying like hell to get a fight career going. Those were some of the best years of my life.

The shoulder started really giving out at 30 years old. I started getting full dislocations. It would pop all the way out and hang, and I had to move my arm around til it found the sweet spot and it would pop back in. I became way too good at that, it was so excruciating but nothing was ever quite so relieving as the feeling of that arm sliding back into place. It started at the gym, but eventually started coming out at home doing everyday things like turning on a light switch. Twice it dislocated in my sleep. Thats a hell of a way to wake up!

I realized I couldn't realistically compete with the vulnerable arm. It was hard to accept, boxing was my life! I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to step into an assistant coaching role. Boxing is a young person's sport anyways, at least competitive boxing is. But I still had the itch to spar, I still had a reason to fight burning somewhere inside of me. I couldn't walk away from boxing, so I had to consider surgery.

I was 30 years old, raising my young son on my own. I had a modest business repairing electronic equipment out of my garage and a part time gig at the gym. I had no money and no free time. I had to postpone the surgery when I found out the recovery time can be up to 6 months and you can’t use the arm at all for at least 4 weeks. There was just no way I could make that work.

So I waited, and focused on coaching. I sparred with one hand, I stayed in decent shape. But that time bomb in my shoulder was ticking and I knew someday I would have to face the music. I didn’t know it then but it would be 7 years and many more dislocations before I finally stepped into a doctors office and asked for help.

{thanks for reading, come back for part 2 where look at the MRI results, assess the damage and schedule surgery}