"Frozen shoulder," it's called. Technically, adhesive capsulitis. Here's the way the orthopedist explained it: there's been a trauma to the muscles or tendons, but the brain perceives the damage to be much greater than it really is. When the body thinks it's about to be damaged even more, the pain flies in to stop movement. He said it takes about a year for the brain to realize, "hey, this damage isn't too bad" to allow regular movement again.
So, about a year of restricted movement, pain if I move the shoulder the wrong way. But the Rx is to keep it moving as much as possible without going to or past the pain point. It supposedly fixes itself in about a year, although if it doesn't show signs of "thawing" (they really call it that), they can manipulate it while I'm under anaesthesia to get it moving again.
Oh joy.
Orthopedist also discouraged pain meds - since it's such a long recovery, there's a greater-than-normal likelihood of dependency. He also said that surgery usually makes it worse.
Oh rapture.
So, good news is there's really nothing terribly wrong. The bad news is that even though there's really nothing wrong, there's a lot of pain in my future.
Fortunately, though, not when I knit! So at Monday Oddball Knitting Night, I worked on my new to-be-felted purse. Got through almost a whole 'nother skein of yarn. I will definitely need more, since I only have 3 left, and that just won't be enough to make it any decent size. And the lovely surprise of tonight's knitting is that Kelly sat with us at the table - in his cozy little corner, reading a little Stephanie Plum - while we knitted and talked trash against men. He took it well, probably because he knew we weren't including him.
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