Surgery pictures!

Now that I've taken the bandages off of my shoulder, I figured I might post some pictures of the damage. It's much worse than I expected. I was expecting a tiny little 2 inch incision. What I actually found was pretty surprising! (almost as surprising as being visited by my lying cheating girlfriend two days before the surgery to get dumped -- her little way of saying, "I really do care")

Here are two shots of the incision, which basically traces the line connecting my left arm to my upper torso.

And here are two shots of the bruising that has appeared on my arm. You see, underneath the bruising there is some significant healing going on. Scar tissue is forming that holds tendon and bone together... and eventually tendon and bone are going to start growing together. Meanwhile though, I get a pretty awesome looking bruise on my skin...

There's a tiny little portal on the back of my shoulder that has some stitches in it too. You see, before they made the big cut they went in with the arthroscope to "release" the tendon from the shoulder. They then used one of the arthroscopic portals on the front as the starting point for the big incision pictured above.

It's pretty exciting. I really hope it all works out. It will be so nice to be able to use my left arm without pain again.

Today I haven't taken any percocet. Later today I'm going to try driving again. It'll be a short distance -- from here to the Panera and back -- but it'll be nice to get out a little bit.

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