On July 8, 2017, I decided to take the faster route home and crashed my bicycle at a railroad crossing as opposed to staying on the bike path. There's probably a sermon in there somewhere. The short story is to make sure that you ALWAYS cross a rail crossing at a perpendicular angle to the direction of the tracks. This was an angled crossing and I've paid dearly for that mistake. My new bike came away mostly unscathed, and is ready for 2018, but I did not fare as well.
Spilled blood, scuffed skin and a very sore shoulder became quickly evident that day. Good care from my brother (a physician here in the Columbus area) got me cleaned up and a month off the road allowed me to heal and to get ready for physical therapy. The better part of the next 4 months were spent waiting, medicating and seeing the physical therapist during the busy season leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas.
At the beginning of December, the physical therapist, my primary care doctor and I agreed that it was time for a deeper look. The progress that I had been making in therapy plateaued and I still had a bum shoulder. An MRI revealed a partially torn biceps tendon, partial tears to the labrum and tears to two different parts of the rotator cuff. December 20, I had shoulder surgery, wore an immobilizer sling for four weeks, and just finished my first sling-less week yesterday. I spent about 10 days off work fully and have worked lots of partial days in January.
Thank you for your patience, if I've been a little slow getting back to your call or email, or on finishing a proposal. I've had my right hand available for use again for about a week, and it's a great relief. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll tell you that the process or shoulder surgery and recovery has been not as bad as some predicted (well worth the end result), but it's supremely inconvenient, sometimes unexpectedly painful and it has been a good lesson in patience with myself and with learning to depend on others.
I still have 11 remaining weeks on the physical therapy calendar, won't be lifting anything of substance for another 5-6 weeks, and have been told to expect a year to full recovery. That seems like a long time.
I look forward to continuing to pick up the pace for you and to helping make your audio, video and lighting dreams a reality in 2018. Again, thank you for allowing me to do what I do.