Mary has a buggered shoulder.

There are people in the world who live with injuries a lot longer than her but this has not been an easy stretch for her. She fell in February, while on a vacation and tore her rotator cuff along with dislodging her bicep from her bone. What does all of that mean? Essentially, she cannot lift her right arm higher than her hip. It’s no way to live your life asking for help to reach the cereal, needing someone to lift your arm to grab the mouse or trying to take your bra off with one hand (although that is a skill I mastered at one point of my bachelor life…).

Tomorrow Mary goes for surgery to repair this damage.

For months we debated the merits of the Canadian medical system. Should she pay for private medical to fix the damage in a world where you pay big bucks for instant help. Or should we wait it out for an appointment to see a specialist and hope to have it repaired in the next 18 months? It brought me back to the old days when we used to receive those extended insurance and dismemberment forms back in elementary school. You remember the conversation with your buddies where it listed the various body parts you could lose and how much it was worth if you lost it. The debate raged on whether it was better to lose an eye for $10,000 or lose one of your hands for $25,000. When you are older or injured, you debate what you will pay them to hopefully get it back.

Mary got lucky, with some dogged perseverance in chasing down various doctors who could hopefully help an active woman get her am back to full use. She was able to get into see a specialist after 7 months with a hope to get a surgery date before Christmas. Last week, her ship came in with a cancelation on the surgery and she is up for a new arm tomorrow. Suddenly, the reality kicked in. She actually has to have a surgery done which means real anesthetic and real risks.

We have had some strange conversations in the past day. Where is my living will and do you know what is in it? What do you mean I can’t drive for 4-6 weeks? How exactly are we getting the kids to all of their different sports with only one driver? The instructions even say she needs to take a pregnancy test prior to the surgery! These aren’t  exactly topics that we have spent much time talking about in the past while so to say it was eye opening is an understatment. I suppose all the legal battles raged through hospital mishap have led to the days where no stone is unturned prior to an operation.

I am confident that she will be better than ever, sooner than even the doctors think. She will have a tough 8-12 weeks of recovery and at the end her “bionic” arm will be a great story to tell. If this is the worst of the hospital visits we see in our lifetime, we will be very fortunate. In the meantime, you can stop wondering why people have to wear that bar that holds your arm out on an angle. Her name is Mary, so say hi to her when you see her.

Good luck baby! Your career as a major league pitcher is over but here’s to being able to drink a beer with your right arm again!

Marco