It has been six weeks since I had shoulder surgery.  Since elective surgeries were postponed for most of last year due to the pandemic, I had to wait several months to get surgery. Up until my surgery, I lived with chronic shoulder instability, ever since my car accident in March 2020 of last year. Chronic shoulder instability is a condition in which the shoulder dislocates constantly and easily. My shoulder dislocated a total of four times last year, with each time worse than before. It was stressful living with an injury where even just raising my arm above my head would cause my shoulder to dislocate. The last time it dislocated was at the end of December, while I was doing yoga. It was the most painful dislocation yet, and my Orthopaedic doctor informed me I would need shoulder surgery as soon as possible. I spent the rest of the year preparing for shoulder surgery. 

It was a major relief to be able to finally get shoulder surgery this year. I had a torn Labrum, a Rotator Cuff tear, and a Hill-Sachs Legion. The procedure I had was called a Remplissage. Ever since my surgery at the beginning of March, I have just been focusing on healing and doing physical therapy.  The first three weeks post surgery were the hardest. I couldn’t shower for a week and had to take sponge baths. I could barely move or do anything and was in a lot of pain. Luckily my mom helped out a lot for the first few weeks. Now at week six, life feels must more manageable than before. I was finally able to take my sling off last week. I can drive now, which is a huge relief living on the Southside of Santa Fe. Life for the next six months- eight months will be focused on my recovery and healing. The physical therapist told me it usually takes a whole year to be back to somewhat normal.  I’ll definitely be taking it one day at a time and focused on my recovery. 

Besides my obvious recovery from surgery, I am also using this time to recover and heal from some grief and trauma in my past. Last year in March right before the car accident, I started EMDR therapy. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a type of therapy that is specific to trauma survivors with PTSD, but it is also useful for other mental health issues, like anxiety. In order to do EMDR, one has to be sober and in a safe environment, both of which I hadn’t been in before. I had to get sober from alcohol and pot, two substances I started abusing a lot since my Grandma died in 2015 to cope with grief. I had been abusing alcohol since I was 19 years old and this past year was the first full year sober I had ever done in my life. I didn’t realize for so long that I had an abusive relationship with alcohol. I just thought everyone drank but didn’t realize that not everyone drank how I did. It was a requirement from my counselor to establish safety and sobriety to even begin to delve into my trauma and truly heal the subconscious wounds. I am a Domestic Violence survivor after being in and getting away from an extremely toxic relationship with a Sociopathic individual. My healing also involves complicated grief, after loosing a close loved one, my grandmother. My Grandma Cora was like a mother to me, especially since I stopped living with my mom at 13 years old and we have had a strained relationship ever since. PTSD and Trauma is something that a lot of people don’t fully understand. I’ll be touching more on the topic of trauma and recovery in this blog.  

I never thought I would be rebuilding my life in my hometown, Santa Fe, the same place I dreamed of moving away from since I was a teenager. I guess this is my reality. I never thought the car accident last year would leave me this broken, physically, mentally, and emotionally. On top of the car accident, last year was filled with everyday stressors from Covid, including loosing two jobs last year and having to move twice. They say sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to really get out of your rut and get moving. I’ve decided to look at this as an opportunity to rebuild my life and learn from the lessons life has been showing me. I’m using this as an opportunity to do just that, to truly learn and grow, so I can emerge as a lotus in the mud in this post pandemic world.