The Art of Matthew Warlick

Because my shoulder hurts, really hurts, for the first time in a good while. Getting back to playing drums has really helped, physically and mentally, and I’ve been feeling pretty good up until this evening, but I’m having some wicked trouble sleeping and needed someone to vent to.

So thanks.

Pain clouds thought so I’ll try to post something more constructive soon.

Remember, this pain is an illusion.

Well damn, it’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to post to this blog ever since the year anniversary of the plate removal in September. It will be 2 years this September 15 th since the second surgery, and while I’m much improved from 2 years ago, I am still struggling with problems that I have come to accept will most likely never go away.

Long story short; the plate came out Sept 15 th 2004 , the next few days are a blur now, but I remember waking up to having feeling in my hand again, and continued on with the rehab and recovery. I did as much rehab as I could, trying to push myself, but otherwise took it easy. I had to quit my band to have some extended time to heal, and began freelancing again, eventually landing a full time gig at an ad agency here in Dallas. I now do graphics for online games, drum in the band again, and continually try to find ways to improve and manage my chronic pain.

Getting laid off right before the surgery prevented me from doing as much physical therapy as I would have liked, so I had to keep up on myself to do it. Over time I’ve picked up the range of motion exercises, as well as yoga, and light weight training to keep my shoulder and arm active. I’m currently working on changing my diet and eating healthier. Honestly, I’ve been slacking lately on the exercises, but have taking up drumming again (something I couldn’t do 2 years ago), as well as running to keep my endurance up. So far my symptoms haven’t worsened, thankfully; it’s just not as easy as is used to be. But nothing worth doing is I suppose.

I’ve still got some tingling in my index finger, a side effect of either nerve damage or TOS, as well as back and neck pain. The right side of my neck stays pretty tight, and I have to continually stretch and exercise to loosen and tone it. The severe pain in my shoulder blade was replaced with a much subdued uncomfortable-ness whenever I have to sit against a hard surface or a shitty office chair. The shooting bicep pain has pretty much vanished, as have most of the sharp or unexpected ones that used to hit me out of nowhere.

I’m pretty sure my clavicle is a bit shorter than it should be however, that or my musculature has just been deformed a bit at the surgery site, as I know have a “dimple” where the new union is, in part to the bone not being as thick in that spot. When Dr. Philip Hansen (avoid this man) installed the original plate, he overlapped the bone too much, so now I have symptoms of nerve damage and TOS, even though the plate is out.

Unfortunately my current insurance is quite shitty, and I’m having trouble getting in to see Dr. Burkhead about the problems that have yet to resolve, but am diligently working on it and will have an update about it as soon as it happens.

All in all I feel better than I did, but looking back I might have opted to not have any surgeries at all had I known the outcome would be a lifetime of nerve damage and chronic pain. Thankfully I can at least play drums again, and hold a paintbrush, something I really couldn’t once Dr. Hansen fucked up the install.

I hope to keep updating this blog, both as an outlet for myself and hopefully as a resource for others who suffer through this. I’ve said it before and will again, this is a debilitating condition, a disease almost, coupled with a healthcare system that doesn’t deal well with the root causes of chronic pain. It’s ironic that 3 generations of my family have now suffered some type of shoulder injury leading to nerve damage and thoracic outlet syndrome. My grandfather passed away long ago from cancer that developed in his lungs following an invasive operation to remove his rib. My father is worse than me but also a lot tougher, and is dealing with his pain as best he can. I hope to get him to start writing about the subject as well.

OriginalJohnny, if you’re out there, look me up man. I lost my addy’s in a hard drive crash but would like to hear how you’re doing.

Much love to all.

Peace.

That’s right folks, that plate is outta there. as i type one-handed, it sits here in a little hospital bag, looking unassuming and surprisingly small. Hard to image such a small thing caused so much pain and managed to help me heal.

Here’s an in-hand picture of it for you, to give you a little sense of size and scale.

So the surgery went well, and after getting a good look with is own eyes the doc says my bone is healed quite significantly. He did a small excision of my clavicle, to remove some “spiked” that had developed from the break/non-union. He also removed some arthritic tissue that was developing near my a/c joint, and he speculates that when i originally broke it, the fracture actually went INTO the a/c joint, hence my miss-mash of conflicting pain and symptoms.

So it’s 3 weeks in a sling “for comfort” and small range of motion “pendulum” exercises to keep it from getting stiff. After that it’s on to rehab and hopefully I’ll be back to jamming on drums in a few months or so.

The picture below is from the doctor removing my “pain pump” and redressing the wound. Appetizing, ain’t it?

Well what a weekend it’s been. I’m now having surgery this Wednesday September 15th at 7:30am.

I arrived at work Friday morning to find a plain white envelope on my desk, informing me that I was no longer needed “due to a reduction in force.” This from a company that just donated $5000 to The Howard Stern Show and spent upwards of $200,000 on full-page ads in the Dallas Morning News, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

$200,000 per paper!

So with my employment status fucked, my insurance in LIMBO … guess who calls! That’s right, My Doctor. Seems they have an opening next week on Wednesday. “Surely you’d like this done as soon as possible?”

Surely.

So i filed for unemployment, requested my COBRA beneifits, and am currently haggling over my severance and (lack of) disability coverage. Needless to say Friday night was a fucking blast.

I haven’t been that drunk in at least a year.

So here I sit, after partying way too much this weekend, drinking WAY too much Friday night, packing up my bags to go stay a few days at the rents’ while I recover. Surgery is tomorrow morning at 7:30, which means I’ll be up at 4am, to leave by 5am, to get there at 6am (when they told me to arrive), only to have to wait until 8:30 because the doc will be late as alwasy.

Ah joy.

At least I’ll be Sans Titanium by this time tomorrow … I can hear thunder outside. How ominous. It should be a lovely morning for surgery.
More to come…

That’s right it’s official. September 22nd will be the big day.

This titanium plate will finally come out and maybe i can get back to some semblance of a normal life. It just so happens that the 22nd is also the fall equinox and the first day of Autumn. I feel that’s a good sign, and I’ve always believed that healing and health are 90% in your mind. Here’s to positivity.
So in my last post i was very excited that i seem to have finally achieved union, meaning that my bone is in one piece and can hold itself together, but now h’m not so sure.

I’m cursed with a curiosity to rival almost anyone’s, and so i like to be as prepared as i can be. So after carefully comparing x-rays from right after the surgery to the one taken in August I’ve come to the conclusion that my signs of union are flimsy at best.

The x-ray was taken at a lighter exposure to show bone of lesser densities, so it’s may be deceiving in that end as well. To my untrained eye it simply appears that my scapula and collarbone are overlapping, and the high exposure gives the illusion of bone growth.

Hopefully I’m wrong though. Check it out for yourself.

Regardless of union or not the plate is coming out, so now i just have to be prepared for whatever complications may arise. Hopefully there IS a small section of bone connecting, which is all i would need to begin recovering, over time stress and weight will force the connection to get thicker and stronger.

So needless to say i’m a bit nervous, but excited to, maybe removing the plate will at least relieve some of my T.O.S. symptoms. The countdown is on. 13 days to go. More to come…

So I finally have a date set. WOO HOO! Just in case you didn’t know, the entire point of my first operation was to correct a broken collarbone, using a 6 inch titanium plate as an internal splint.

Well I received good news this past Tuesday in the form of a nice spiffy x-ray showing promising signs that my bone has in fact grown back into one piece.

So what does this mean for me you might ask. Well, a shitload actually. It means that my coming surgery will remove the plate, leaving me with a plateless, one-piece, fully-functioning collarbone, minus the extra space the plate was taking up, which should help alleviate my symptoms even more. I plan on attaching the T.O.S. with some aggressive physical therapy.

So September 22 is the tentative date for this bad boy, baring they have an opening any sooner, in which case the date may move up.

They will be removing the titanium plate, and applying some artificial bone graft to help with healing. The good news is that baring any complications I should only be in a sling for about 14 days, and able to return to work and normal activities in 6 weeks.

more to come.

So the last 2 days have been the best and worst, respectively, of the past year and a half.

So if you haven’t read the good news, you can do so HERE. In short, my bone is healed and I can now have surgery to take the plate out, in hopes of receiving my T.O.S. symptoms.

So yesterday was average in the fact that I didn’t hurt extremely bad. I seemed to get through the workday fine. I tried to go to sleep around 1 and just couldn’t, I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately and i’m not quite sure why. So I tossed and turned for a bit, i finally got up and decided to veg out on the idiot box.

Come about 3 o’clock all hell broke loose. I haven’t been this sick in a while, and I’ve been sick off and on in the past 2 weeks. It’s funny too, so far there are 3 or 4 people I work with, on the NEW floor no less, all have been having stomach problems the last 2 weeks. Before that is was headaches.

Maybe it’s bad karma.

So I’m not sure what happened, but amidst the puking and diarrhea I seemed to have agitated the fuck out of my shoulder. My hand went almost completely numb, something that I’ve managed to avoid for almost a month now.

Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep last night, what with the epic struggle between my shoulder and bowels. It will be known as “The Great Blowout of 2004.”

I had to take the day off from work to rest my hand, being a designer with T.O.S. isn’t a good thing. Kind of hard to design when you can’t hold a fucking mouse.

I’m trying to stay positive though, I should get my surgery date today or tomorrow, and then I’ll have a date to look forward to for “hardware removal”.

More to come for sure…

I went to see Dr. Burkhead Tuesday for my final pre-surgery visit. I was planning on taking the titanium plate out, in hopes that it would alleviate some of my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome symptoms. I was skeptical though, seems Burkhead wanted to do a clavicle resection as well, and if you’ve seen my x-rays, that is way to much bone to take out. I’ve read anything more than 1 or 2cm being removed can cause MAJOR complications. And I really don’t want to come out any worse this time.

So I asked some questions and told him about my reservations, i also told him straight up that I didn’t want to and wouldn’t let him remove the end of my clavicle. So he decides to do an x-ray, and low and behold, on a light exposure, there are very promising signs of union.

I literally couldn’t fucking believe it.

I don’t like to get my hopes ups, but the x-rays DO look promising. See for yourself.

So after getting the good news, I agreed to let him remove the plate, and shave off the very tip of the lateralof my collarbone, as the union has made the top part stick out in a spiky fashion.

I literally felt hopefull for the first time in almost 9 months. It was nice. So we got into talking about possible treatments for the T.O.S., and he starts talking about releasing my scalene muscles, or my pectoralis minor muscles from the bones. Now I’m amazed by modern medicine, but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around detaching muscles from bone. It seems altering your anatomy that much just couldn’t possibly be good for you. However, it seems the muscle scars back to the bone, allowing the muscle to “stretch” and allow for more space in your thoracic outlet. Good thing I took my dad with me.

He’s had a shoulder injury now for several years, with pretty severe nerve damage. He’s also develop R.S.D., , a VERY debilitating nerve disease. If anyone knows his shit, it’s my dad. Funny thing, my Grandfather had Thoracic Outlet Syndrome as well. They took out his first rib to allow for more space. Four years later his lung collapses, and they discover cancer living in the scar tissue of his rib and all down his surgical scar. It eventually spread to his brain and killed him.

And so now my dad has T.O.S. as well, thanks to his work-related injury. He had some kind of nerve cutting procedure done (for obvious reasons he didn’t opt to remove a rib, something ill never do either). Well, nerves are funny things, and despite what doctors and books tell you, they DO grow back, albeit very slowly, only they don’t work right when they do. Imagine your nerves as the electrical wiring in a robot, and someone crosses all the wires from your arm to your brain. From you’re shoulder down, you’ll never work correctly again. Symptoms include, pain, aching, tingling, numbness, muscle atrophy, and wasting.

And so now I have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome as well. Woo Hoo!

* Insert sarcasm here

So now I have to do as much research as I can on active surgical pectoralis minor muscle releases. Shit, that’s a mouthful.

So i went for my second EMG today, this time with a Dr. Frank Morrison that was recommended by the Vascular Specialist Dr. Pearl, who i was referred to by Dr. Hansen, the doc who did the original surgery. Confused? me too. Doctors are weird and confusing to me as well.

So i arrived an hour late, at 5, after my appointment being delayed 2 hours. Seems he REALLY likes to take his time and do a thorough examination. After about 45 minutes of observing, testing reflexes, comparing feelings in my arm, hand, etc, he hooked me up to the EMG machine. I didn’t leave his office until almost 8.

I’m usually talkative when I’m nervous, and when people are pumping volts thru me and sticking mw with needles it tends to make me nervous. So i talked with him about my symptoms and his thoughts so far. Thank god he had a good bedside manner.

Seems the original Diagnostician didn’t do a very good job. She didn’t even test my good arm as a control, which he seemed very surprised by. Seem everyone Dr. Hansen touches gets fucked up, and all the doctors he refers me too fuck their jobs up. He said he sees more of Dr. Hansen’s patients after surgery than any other 2 combined. He also asked why I didn’t have dr. Burkhead do it. He seems to think very highly of him. I hope so, cause he is going to be the one to take the plate out.

So after almost 2 hours of being poked and prodded I was done. I wiggled as much out of him as I could, as doctors don’t like to tell YOU the results, they’d rather another doctor tell you based on their notes. Or some bullshit like that.

But, according to him my symptoms are obvious. Turns out I have what he called “beautiful anomalies” in my nerve conductivity, as well as 2 pinched nerves, Thoracic Outlet syndrome, Nerve compression at C6 and C7, and a possible herniated disk. So in lamens terms, The Surgery fuct me up worse, and i have nerve damage.

WooHoo for modern medicine.

So it’s been a week exactly and I’m STILL waiting for the “official” results to be sent to the vascular specialist. Once he gets them I can decide what type of surgery needs to be done. Hopefully just taking the damn titanium plate out will be enough to give me my hand back. At this point that’s all I want, to be able to draw and write without my hand going numb and being in excruciating pain.

Ahh, one can dream.

More to come….

So i officially quit my band today.
Below is my final post to adeninemusic.com
——————————-

ADENINE NEEDS A DRUMMER

That’s right folks. It’s official. The shoulder has given out and unfortunately, I will no longer be able to play drums with adenine. To those of you in the know this shouldn’t be much of a shock, and for those who don’t, well here ya go…

About a year and a half ago I was involved in an ATV accident which shattered off the end of my collarbone. After several months and no signs of healing I decided to have a surgery, so I could once again play drums. So they put a metal plate in, in order to give the bone a framework to grow from, think of it as an internal splint.

Well the surgery went well, but I haven’t healed as I should, and as of right now, my drumming career is on hiatus. I have symptoms of nerve damage and chronic pain, and until I can take care of this and focus 100% on playing again, I didn’t want to be a burden and hold Adenine back from all the things they are destined to do. I will be having another surgery soon, hopefully this one will correct the problem.

I wish adenine the best of luck, and hope they find a drummer who can take them to the next level. I will be focusing on my art and writing until my shoulder is fixed, and anyone interested can keep up with me at www.soulcore.net. For news on the shoulder check out www.soulcore.net/sites/shoulder.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent with adenine, I wish them continued success and most of all, I hope they continue pushing the envelope of what is considered modern, intelligent, progressive rock and roll.

To everyone who’s supported adenine and me over the past 3 or 4 years, THANK YOU. You are the reason we are all in this business in the first place. To make music for you to listen to, that WE would want to listen to. Those who know me well know I like to speak in haikus at times, so I will leave you all with this…

In time all things fade,
The strand must continue on
My soulcore weeps not.

So i officially quit my band today.
Below is my final post to adeninemusic.com

—————————–

ADENINE NEEDS A DRUMMER
That’s right folks. It’s official. The shoulder has given out and unfortunately, I will no longer be able to play drums with adenine. To those of you in the know this shouldn’t be much of a shock, and for those who don’t, well here ya go…

About a year and a half ago I was involved in an ATV accident which shattered off the end of my collarbone. After several months and no signs of healing I decided to have a surgery, so I could once again play drums. So they put a metal plate in, in order to give the bone a framework to grow from, think of it as an internal splint.

Well the surgery went well, but I haven’t healed as I should, and as of right now, my drumming career is on hiatus. I have symptoms of nerve damage and chronic pain, and until I can take care of this and focus 100% on playing again, I didn’t want to be a burden and hold Adenine back from all the things they are destined to do. I will be having another surgery soon, hopefully this one will correct the problem.

I wish adenine al the best of luck, and hope they find a drummer who can take them to the next level. I will be focusing on my art and writing until my shoulder is fixed, and anyone interested can keep up with me at www.soulcore.net. For news on the shoulder check out www.soulcore.net/sites/shoulder.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent with adenine, I wish them continued success and most of all, I hope they continue pushing the envelope of what is considered modern, intelligent, progressive rock and roll.

To everyone who’s supported adenine and me over the past 3 or 4 years, THANK YOU. You are the reason we are all in this business in the first place. To make music for you to listen to, that WE would want to listen to. Those who know me well know I like to speak in haikus at times, so I will leave you all with this…

In time all things fade,
The strand must continue on
My soulcore weeps not.

A fellow clavicle sufferer gave me some words of wisdom recently,

he said: “When you feel good, you are cocky like it is going to be o.k. When it feels bad, you sound desperate and un-informed.”

And he’s right. Today i feel desperate and uninformed. I feel hopeless, and i don’t think i will ever be rid of this pain, or able to do the things i once did.

Very rarely do i get emotional, and one thing chronic pain will do, is MAKE you emotional. There are days that you feel energetic like you can handle anything, you can make it through another day; and those days are encouraging.

And there are days like today, when the pain is so great and so concentrated that it makes you want to give up. It makes you want to give in and self medicate. To feel NOTHING as opposed to always being in pain.

I bough groceries today, an everyday task for most people, a daunting thing for me today. It hurt so bad i couldn’t lift a gallon of milk without my shoulder feeling like it was exploding. I have these sharp pains that ripple down my bicep in certain positions. They only last a second but they literally stop me in my tracks. It’s hard to drive, I can’t really rest my shoulder anywhere, it feels like my shouldeblade is poking into the seat, and it hurts something fierce. Thankfully I don’t have to drive far to work.

The numbness is still gone but my hand is tingling again. And my forearm too. My forearm has never tingles like this before today. I bet anything swimming really aggravated something in there. I’ve also noticed my good shoulder is starting to hurt at night sometimes, and often when I wake up it will be sore. I’m not too sure if it’s from overuse, or maybe It’s from sleeping the same way every night, but there are only so many positions that I can sleep in as well.

I don’t mean to complain per say, or to sound bitchy, but I needed to get it off my chest. It feels good to vent, and this is the only way I can do it constructively. Plus it gives me a reference to look back on later. At least the meds are kicking in finally…

And the moral of the story is : everything is relative, and there is always tomorrow.

Well i think the cortizone is wearing off.

Today i hurt more than i have in a few weeks, and over the past 2 days my hand has been tingling mildly and getting that aching feeling. I took the day off from work in hopes of resting my shoulder and hand, and have such been informed that all missed time will now be docked from my vacation/sick time. It’s fair i suppose, but frustrating considering my likelihood is in jeopardy now. I’ve been exercising more, more to keep my mind off the pain than anything else, but it seems to at least be good for my overall morale.

I have another appointment July 23rd with a vascular specialist, perhaps he can help me pin down the cause of all this; weather it be Carpel Tunnel Syndrome , Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, or Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.

Either way I’ve got at least another few months of being in pain, waiting on results and surgery recommendations. I’m beginning to firmly believe that doctors truly do only care about money.

All i’m asking is for someone to help fix me. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

Today was great. I went out to the parent’s house in princeton and had home-grilled burgers with all the fixens. I went swimming for about an hour an came out of it with a nice tan. My shoulder did great, and it felt SO good to be in the water, actually using my arm to it’s full extent without having to support the weight. I think i’ll make that a weekly part of my regimen now. At least an hour in the pool on sundays. it’ll do me good.

So today i had two follow up appointment; one with Dr. Hansen who did the actual surgery, and one with dr. Burkhead, who i’m leaning to more as the doc who REALLY wants to help me, to fix whatever’s wrong with my shoulder.

The appointment with Dr Hansen went ok, i got the usual shpeal about Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and he recommended me to another doctor, a vascular specialist. That apointment isn’t until the 23rd of July. He basically said he is done with me, he won’t take the plate out, doesn’t recommend a resection. According to him i should just live with the pain forever. Bleh.

The appointment with Dr. Burkhead was a little more productive. He talked with me about the possible causes, pinched nerves, etc … I conveyed my reservations about having the clavicle resection, so he went over the entire procedure with me. In a best case scenario they remove the plate, shave a bit off of my collarbone, sow me back up and call it good. On the other hand, if the original fracture hasn’t healed, he wants to take out the entire broken piece, removing the ligaments attaching it, and then reattaching them to the end of the bone that’s there. The recovery time for this is 6 months to a year.

So to address the pain, he offered to give me a local anesthetic (lydecane) to help with the pain. Talk about scary, they shove this 3 inch log needle into you, them move it around and give you various injections all over the place, then they take it out and do it all over again in another spot. So after doing this and talking about postponing the surgery he offered to give me a cortizone injection as well, hoping that it could provide pain relief for up to 6 weeks, which would of course ROCK BALLS.

So i went home and took some valium, laid down and concentrated on the pulsing in my shoulder. Hopefully tomorrow i will be able to tell a difference for the better.

So today was worse than most lately. Thankfully my hand is still doing well, and not going numb; my shoulder, however, hurt like a fucking bitch today.

I was frustrated all day and had to leave work early. Sometimes i just can’t deal with the pain and need to lay down, something i don’t think many people can comprehend much less understand.

I have two doctors appointment tomorrow, with Dr. Hansen and Dr. Burkhead. Hopefully 24 hours from now i’ll have a better idea of what i need done and when it’ll happen.

Well today has been a bit better than most, my hand hasn’t been numb for almost a week so i’ve been able to do some painting and drawing, i’ve also worked on the new website some more.

My shoulderblade has been bothering me tho, it seems when my arm doesn’t ache or tingle it transfers to my shoulderblade. I have a sharp pain over the spot where your shoulderblade and collarbone connect.

The sharp pains in my bicep have subsided today as well, i think they get worse whenever i lift heavy objects, but i’ll hafta pay closer attention to find out for sure.

All in all not a bad day, and easily made better by pain killers … happy birthday to me.

So i went to see doctor Bonnet yesterday, an orthopedic surgeon recommended by a co-worker who had a clavicle resection. He seemed nice enough and had a good disposition, and genuinely seemed to want to help.

I could hear him outside looking thru my chart and x-rays, he musta’ been out there a good 5 minutes, flipping back and forth.

The first thing he said when he walked in was “Sound like you’ve been thru hell this past year!” And i’m thinking in my head, “wow, you’re the first doc to really notice that.”

I went thru the usual steps with a new doc, describing the history and symptoms. And he retorts with all the things that could be wrong, “pinched nerve, carppel tunnel, cubbital tunnel, Thoracic Outlet, Nerve Damage, Brain Tumor.”

All my symptoms seem to point to nerve damage, although it’s random and intermittent, and nerve damage is usually pretty bad consistently. Also, every doctor, including this one, says if it WAS nerve damage, it would have been bad to BEGIN with, and would have gotten better this past year, adn not worse.

SO i asked him what he thought was wrong and what i should do. And he goes … “well, usually i would send you to a shoulder specialist, a really good doctor by the name of dr. Hansen downtown.” It would figure that he is already my doctor and seems just as stumped.

So he reassured me that a clavicle resection wouldn’t disable me, and would be fairly painless and routine, all things considered. He did also say however, that it probably has nothing to do with my hand and shoulderblade. It may help my clavicle and the pain in my bicep, but who knows what it might make worse. I’m just so damn scared of having another surgery.

So as i’m leaving, Dr Bonnett shakes my hand and goes. “You’re a very interesting man with a very interesting case. If you don’t mind i’ld like to call Dr. Hansen and discuss you’re case with him to try and get to the bottom of it.”

I said “sure, please feel free to do whatever you think will help.”

So i called Dr Hansen again and have an appointment This coming Tuesday. I’m still no closer to figuring out what’s really wrong; it could be a multitude of possibilities.

At least my hand isn’t numb today, ahhh the joy of unpredictability.

I think now would be a good time to draw…

So, I opted not to have the initial surgery, as 90% of most patients due. For the most part, collarbones heal back normally with little treatment.

What I didn’t know then is that there are 3 types of collarbone breaks, based on the area broken, along with subset of each category. Turns out I had a type 2 distal clavicle fracture, the one that just so happens to have the most complications. It’s basically the worst kind of collarbone break you can get, completely breaking the distal end off, while tearing and separating the ligaments that hold your shoulder together.

Your collarbone acts like an axle and a crank a the same time, the slightest movement of your arm can send the outside end, or distal end, of you’re clavicle not only up, but twisting and rotating as well. As you can imagine this isn’t very conducive to bone healing. I wish I would have know this earlier.

Most people don’t realize it, but you’re arm has no bony attachment to your body. You have a knee joint and a hip joint, but you have no shoulder joint. I know what you’re saying to yourself … “Then how can someone dislocate his or her shoulder?”

Well here’s how!

You can actually dislocate you’re shoulder BECAUSE there are no bony attachments. The end of your Humorous, or upper arm bone, rests inside you’re rotator cuff, which is a modified ball and socket joint comprised entirely of muscle and ligament. So once you pop it out once, you’ve stretched out those muscles, and are usually prone to do it again

So 6 weeks go by and they say I can take the sling off, I was still very weak and sore, but managed to slowly increase my activity. About 12 weeks went by and I got the go ahead to start drumming again, something I was dying to do.

I wish now I wouldn’t have. After a couple months of playing and trying to rehab my arm through drumming, I began to notice I would get fatigued very quickly, and I couldn’t really do any overhead activity with my arm. So I go back to my doctor.

Turns out the bones never healed back, and the only thing keeping them from rubbing against each other, while causing great pain, was a small sac of fluid and scar tissue between them.

Now most doctors use surgery as a last resort, and I completely understand why. Needless to say I went through my fair share of physical therapy and home exercising. After a few months I began to develop severe back pain. After much deliberation I decided to have an OR-IF.

At first the results we’re good, and I progressed slowly but surely. About 4 month into recovery, I started developing numbness and tingling in my hand and forearm. I woke up one morning and the pain was unbearable. I immediately made an appointment to see my doctor, who seems very uninterested in helping me in any way, he seemed to think the pain was in my head, or that I was exaggerating.

It took 4 different doctors until I found one willing to REALLY help me, and to take me seriously. I currently have a very low opinion of medical professionals.

So that’s the story thus far, I live with pain and numbness is my hand and shoulder on a daily basis, and this is how I get out my thoughts, feeling, and frustrations. Hopefully it will be midly entertaining while serving to help and educate those who suffer the same fate.

My one piece of advice to everyone is to stay positive. As corny as it sounds, you can only feel as good as you let yourself. It’s your body, listen to it and take control of it. That, and don’t be afraid of doctors, a lot of them know a lot less than you do I can assure you.

An introduction
On May 4th, 2003, I broke my collarbone. Not an uncommon accident. Collarbone fractures account for more than a third of all broken bones.

I was riding a new ATV. It flipped, and landed on ym shoulder. 500+ pounds of machinery falling backwards, pinning me to the ground, snapping the end off of mt collarbone.

My friend Bruce had to pull it off of me, I was pinned and good. I stood up and miraculously I could walk, I could breathe, I was OK.

Then my shoulder and arm went kinna’ fuzzy, and the pain kicked in. It hurt so bad I fell down.

My parents drove me to the ER, and I was x-rayed, diagnosed with a broken clavicle, and sent home with a sling, with orders to see my orthopedist first thing Monday.

So I go to see the doctor and get the usual shpeal, let it heal, it will most likely be fine. He told me there was an option to do a surgery, to lasso the bones together to ensure healing, I was so scared of surgery I declined, and that has haunted me ever since.

Had I had that small operation then I wouldn’t be in this situation.

My personal advice to anyone who ever breaks there collarbone, HAVE THE OPERATION. It’s not TOO invasive, and will keep you from having a titanium plate installed later.

Next: The Story Thus Far