When Spring arrived at our home Saturday morning, the temperature outside sat at a not-so-Springlike temperature of 24 degrees, according to the readout of my computer screen from the weather station that sits on the roof of one of our sheds.
On this Sunday, at 6:32 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the readout is a little better — 31 degrees — but still below freezing.
Is this Spring?
The forecasted hourly temperatures form the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, says the thermometer should read above freezing — about 40 degrees — when I have to leave home for the drive over to Christiansburg for a set of MRIs at Carilion Clinic.
Two oddities on the second day of Spring — cooler than Springlike weather and an appointment at a medical facility for a non-emergency procedure at a medical facility on a Sunday morning.
The docs want to find the cause of pain and limitations of movement in my shoulders and upper arms and, while they are at it, take another look at the brain abused by a reckless life over the last 73 years of a rambunctious life.
I suspect the pain in my right shoulder is a bone spur that brought talk of surgery more than a decade ago but shrank after a shot of cortisone. They said the spur would probably return. Feels like it did,
My left shoulder suffers a condition called “frozen shoulder,” which limits movement of my arm, a problem for a person who eats and writes with his left hand and also needs movement to use things like a camera. The condition comes from two injuries — a broken arm and dislocated shoulder playing softball back in the 1980s.
The orthopedist who reset the arm at and popped my shoulder back into place at a hospital in Arlington was the one who operated on Joe Theismann, of the Washington Redskins in a game against the New York Giants in 1985. Theismann never played pro football again and the Redskins are now called just The Washington Football Team.
During our 23 years in the Washington area, wife Amy and I enjoyed eating at Theismann’s restaurant in Alexandria and got to know him when he would visit diners. When I told him about my encounter with his orthopedist, he said: “I’m surprised you can use that arm at all, given who worked on it.”
Later that year, a worse accident on my bike left caused a compound fracture involving the fibula and tibia — just like Theismann — and it took multiple surgeries before I could walk again. Somehow, Theismann heard about the injury, which brought a get-well card and a note about “trying to copy me.”
In 2012, the rear-view mirror of a pickup truck that crossed over the line struck that same shoulder when I was on my motorcycle on Meadow Brook Lane in Montgomery County (better known as Pig Path). Somehow, I stayed on my bike but had a massive bruise of a shoulder with already-limited movement made became “frozen.”
Golf icon Tiger Woods left the hospital last week after suffering the same set of broken bones in his leg in an auto crash in Los Angeles County on Feb. 24 and speculation now wonders if he will be able to play golf again. Let’s hope he can.
In previous examinations of my “frozen shoulder,” orthopedists have considered arthroscopic shoulder or even replacement of the joint. If the bone spur on the right shoulder is back, they might recommend rotator cuff surgery. I hope they might just try another shot of cortisone, but another set of shots in other joints had to be put off after getting the first round of COVID-19 vaccine shots earlier this month. I will have to wait at least a month after the second shot in April.
Oh well. At least it is Spring. Despite the sub-freezing temperatures this morning, the forecast for Sunday says 57 degrees and sunny later in the day with a low of 32 overnight. Monday predicts a high near 60, a good forecast for covering the Senior Night football matchup between Floyd County and James River high schools at Coach Beale Field at 6 p.m.