I just want to put this out there because, well, because I do. Ideas that bubble up and circulate in my brainal region need to escape. So buckle up and read.
I'm getting older. This is an inherent risk of living, but one that I have chosen to deal with. Along with getting older come the big three -- why does that hurt now, why am I awake and why is it so cold. But hey, we learn to deal with stuff, amirite? Yes. Yes, I am.
Last March, when the Covid (by law, old people must introduce all post-2001 nouns with the definite article and get extra points for doing the same for many pre-2001 nouns. It's in the rule book) was emerging, I was sitting at my desk, breathing. Back then, that was all the rage. Still popular now, I guess, but the memes have stopped so it is just "normal." I was doing it before it was cool. I work in a school that had a large number of "early adopters" of the Covid. The young people led our charge into the year, God bless 'em.
Anyhow, at around the same time, I was helping my DOM (Z"L) move into my big brother's house. This "helping" included listening to her when she made lists of things she wanted from her old house, and getting said things. I'm cool like that. Early to Mid-March, she wanted her clothes. So I, the dutiful horse, drove to the house and shlepped a whole mess o' clothes. I dropped them off at big bro's and hung out for a bit and then went home.
A side note -- I'm not the athletic type. I'm in no shape to be in any shape so I get shin splints and dry heaves from pushing the button to call the elevator. But I carried lady dresses, blouses, skirts, sweaters, pants suits and who the heck knows what else because, you know, mom.
This was on a Sunday.
By Monday, I felt like Balki and Larry Appleton after they went to the gym to impress the girls. If this cultural reference is lost on you, you need to review your Perfect Strangers knowledge holdings because the scene in which they "run" after each other while in paralyzing pain is comedy gold. It is the scene before this one, but you can start here if you want. I ached something fierce. I powered through with all the requisite self deprecation. No good deed goes unpunished et cetera.
By Thursday evening, those aches had subsided but, while sitting on the sofa (with no sister or two) I was possessed of the chills. I mean the CHILLS. Multiplying and all that, I couldn't stop shaking. I had no fever and felt mostly fine but I could not stop shivering. It was crazy with a capital Q. I assumed I had caught something innocuous like the flu or the plague and went to bed. All passed by the morning but what a story I had. Back to work I go.
Later that same lifetime, the Mrs. suggested that the fam take a trip to get tested for anti-bodies. As I have been anti-my-body for years, I was in favor of getting it documented. I had blood drawn (cue the red crayon) and found out a week or more later that I was in possession of a substantial supply of anti-bodies. It tapirs that the chills and aches were symptoms of the dreaded the Covid. I had survived (long enough to pass the condition on the child #2) and lived grumpily after. "Ever" has yet to be proven.
I continued with my process of living. I donated plasma, I woke up early every day (because I couldn't not...age...sigh) and I suffered the slings and arrows of not having a fortune. When the school year started, my employer issued fiat that all employees get vaccinated for the flu, so I masked up, got in line and let someone stick a sharp object in my left shoulder-region (from where we get sparkling shoulders).
I noticed not long after that that my left shoulder hurt. A lot. Limited range of motion, but I just assumed that some residual aches from a poke was normal. Eventually, I realized it wasn't so I went to a shoulder-guy. Not a shoulder-broad, but not because of sexism or a hatred of Chicago. I went to the doctor that my orthopedic practice signed me up for when I said "ow, my shoulder" to them over the disinfected phone. I saw him and he did a series of tests. He suggested that I had SIRVA (or is it SERVA) which happens, though rarely, after shoulder shots when the shot goes in the wrong place. Eventually, he discounted this and he decided that I had a rotator cuff problem so he sent me home with rotator cuff exercises and a prescription for ibuprofen. I told him that, since I was scheduled to get the vaccine for the Covid, I would do so in my right shoulder. Yes, I know that the shot produces short term aches, but my left shoulder was in a longer term relationship with pain already, I didn't want to disturb that. I downed the pills and tried the exercises (though the very notion is against my personal belief system). Nothing made a difference. At our next meeting, he recommended an MRI which stands for "noisy claustrophobia machine" but in Uggaritic. I had that test done.
Medium forward to the test results: 1. my rotator cuff is fine, 2. I have the degeneration of age and 3. I have a partial tear in my superior labrum, Superior to what, right?
Interestingly, I also started to notice that my right shoulder, even weeks after the Covid shot #1 still hurt and was hurting more and more. I couldn't sleep even more than I usually can't sleep and the ibuprofen wasn't doing much for the right shoulder. The pain which was at times constant and at other times, a little less than that included tingling down my arm into my hand, dull throbbing pain, a feeling like I had a dead arm and surface sensitivity to touch. And probably criticism because I'm me. The calendar marched into April and the weather stayed 45 and rainy except when it was confusingly 65 and windy. I continued to be cold because my body, the highly tuned machine that it is, has already set its internal thermostat for a constant 80, so anything under that is "freezing" until December when anything over 40 will be "balmy."
When it was time for shot #2, I opted for another LEFT should shot so I could leave the right shoulder alone (it, having made its opinion of shots abundantly clear). Yes, the left shoulder still hurt, but it was a different kind of hurt and that should count for something.
It is currently the next day (philosophical and linguistic concerns not withstanding). I woke up at 3. I played solitaire on the phone after a solid hour of trying to fall back asleep and looking at the clock and scrolled through Facebook until 5:45, so I have gotten more done before 6:30 than anyone, ever. I am wondering, should I go to work? Let's review the symptoms, one day after:
My shoulder hurts. Right and left. Big deal.
I have body aches elsewhere. Your are old. Deal with it.
I'm shivering and cold. Nothing new here.
I feel like crap. Does anyone ever wake up at 3AM and NOT feel like crap?
So I'm going to work, ready to bring happiness and joy into the lives of a bunch of teenagers who would rather I was on death's door.
