When I started Powerlifting many years ago….
No one told me there’d come a time when my strength would fade.
No one told me that my joints would begin to fail.
No one told me that what brought me so much satisfaction would eventually bring me so much pain.
Where do I go from here?
I could stop lifting, but that’s not in my nature.
I could find another outlet, like many do, but I’m not there yet.
For now I will fight on. I will work around my pain and look for options to fix myself until I can no longer be fixed.
After 10 or so years of my right shoulder bothering me (and being greatly aggravated by my autoimmune issues) I finally had an MRI a couple weeks ago. After reading my X-ray the last ortho told me I needed joint replacement surgery but I was really hoping they could scope it to clean out bone spurs (which I know I have) and any soft tissue damage the spurs may have caused. At this point I can’t bench (except with the Swiss bar) or even get my arms back enough to squat (except with the Cambered or SSBar). Unfortunately, there’s no soft tissue damage (yes, I was actually hoping for an injury). I just have severe loss of cartilage and osteoarthritis. Thankfully I did my own research and found out that full shoulder replacement, or even partial, aren’t the only options. There’s a HemiCAP procedure (shown in the picture below on the right) which is much less invasive, is an outpatient procedure, requires less recovery time, and most importantly would allow me to continue lifting. I found who I believe is a local provider and have an appointment tomorrow.
I’ll keep you updated, but am interested to hear if any of you have any experience with this procedure.
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
- Dylan Thomas
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