Before and after

I saw the orthopedist Monday for my first postoperative appointment. He was very pleased with my progress so far. He tested my range of motion and strength and said it was very good for this point in recovery.

He also gave me the pictures from the arthroscope during the operation. If you are exceptionally squeamish, go no further. I promise that you will see no blood, just tissue.

Even though my shoulder aches and doesn’t work the best right now, I am very pleased that I had this done. Instead of continuing to get worse, I am getting better. WOO HOO!

Rotator cuff before debridment
This is my rotator cuff before anything was done to it. Notice how fuzzy it is. Hubby compared it to a teased-out cotton ball. The body’s interior surfaces are supposed to be smooth, but this certainly is not.
Here the machine is debrideing my shoulder. It’s combing the frayed tendons so the stray strands may be removed. I thought this picture was absolutely fascinating.
Here is the tendon after debridement or, as I think of it, defuzzing. See how smooth it is?
This is my AC joint. Note the brown areas toward the bottom of the picture. This area has been injured so badly that it bled. I don’t know when or how many times that would have happened. I have injured this shoulder numerous times. I have no clue which one(s) were bad enough to make it bleed that far inside my arm. Also, this cartilage is very rough. Rough is bad; smooth is good.
Notice that most of the brown stuff is gone. The steak bone looking thing is just that. Bone. He shaved off about half an inch of arthritic bone that was rubbing on bone. My shoulder made horrible noises in that area and now they are gone.
This shows fraying under my scapula. I had often felt that I had something grinding back there, something stuck between my shoulder blade and ribs. I was right. I had experienced much pain in my left mid-back. I no longer have that uncomfortable feeling that something is stuck in my back. Here’s why.
I went from fuzzy to smooth in that area. A bit of fuzz is still showing, but that was removed in another picture.