One Year (and 18 days)

So, its officially been over a year since surgery. I continue to do very well, and though I still struggle sometimes with endurance, coordination and tightness in my arm, I am progressing very steadily, which I am very happy with. The endurance and coordination are more full arm related, and surprisingly, the tightness that I get most tends to be in my forearm, but in reality, even those things are very minor. Oftentimes, I forget I had the issues that I did. I mean, the only reason it really comes up  now is that  I am currently taking one Freshman class at school this semester, because it was one of the two classes I didn't take the semester I had surgery. But, after this semester, I will be completely caught up, and will be able to move on from the ordeal further. I'm not saying I will try to forget the experience by any means, but it won't be something that affects my everyday life anymore.

I'm not sure I have ever said this here, but I was expected to get about 80% use back in my shoulder. Now, you may think, she was probably so excited to hear that after a year in a sling. You would to be wrong. I know that sounds weird, I mean, I had been told by multiple doctors that there was nothing they could do nothing for me, that this may be permanent. But, for some reason, it never affected me the way that hearing 80% did. Maybe I was in denial of what was happening to me. But really, I think the whole time I thought it was just I hadn't found the right doctor yet. To hear the right doctor, the expert, say 80%, crushed me. With every other appointment, I was just frustrated with the lack of knowledge about what was going on. With this appointment, I had officially lost something that I would probably never get back. In my head, I had not only lost 20% of my shoulder use, I had also lost the possibility of normal. I mean, usually I think that normal is overrated, but in this situation, that was not the case. I eventually got more used to the 80% idea in the months leading up to and after the surgery, and became grateful for what I had, but I always had that hope of 100%. Now, I have realized that I have the chance of getting that 100%. Out of any of the grades I have gotten in my life, the 95% I have in the area of Left Shoulder Post 2006, with the possibility of a 100%, is the one I am most happy about.