As an avid tennis player, I’m used to seeing the people around me get injured and have to pull out of the next few months of tournaments. It’s sort of a side-effect of reaching retirement, since most of the people I play with are all over the age of 60. I have recently reached retirement too, and to my surprise I have done something to injure my shoulder. It obviously occurred while I was playing tennis, since I pretty much gasped in pain when it happened. I did try to avoid it getting worse by using things like heat packs and getting lots of rest, but it didn’t seem to help.
Last week I visited a shoulder injury specialist. Melbourne has quite a few of those around, so I ended up choosing the one that was near me, so I wouldn’t have to inflame my shoulder further on the drive. When I got there, I was taken into a room by a friendly and professional specialist. We went through my symptoms, like the pain in my upper arm, the cramping of my biceps, and how difficult it was to rotate my shoulder. The specialist was sympathetic to my concerns and expressed how frustrating it must have been for me to not be able to play tennis, which was my favourite hobby.
However, after running a few tests the specialist also explained that I had injured my biceps and likely needed a surgery called biceps tenodesis. We did a couple of movements on my arm, like manipulating the joints, to check how severe the tear was, and apparently it was pretty bad. After the surgery I can expect to recover during a long process that can take many weeks. I’ll have to wear a sling for several weeks, and go through many rounds of physical therapy on my arm. I just want to get back to playing tennis!