Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum

Today, my birthday (shameless attempt to receive birthday wishes!) I will take stock of my life. What have I done in the past year? Where am I compared to where I want to be in life?  All of those things.  And perhaps the best thing I’ve done for myself, besides topping up my contributions to the company pension plan, was starting drumming lessons. What follows may seem like a bit of a downer but that’s not how I’m choosing to view it. It’s just a pause on the road to becoming the best John Bonham I can be. 

It took me several weeks of tapping away as a fledgling drummer to realize what my goal was: I wanted to be able to play The Ocean by Led Zeppelin. If I could master that, I’d be happy. Well, it’s still a goal and I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to know better than to put an end date on it. I have picked up the drumsticks only once in two months and that was a bit of a disaster.

For many months, years in fact, I’ve been getting treatments for whiplash and frankly, it just hasn’t been working. It’s been frustrating and despite visits to my physician and other various professionals, it never improved. The advice was always the same: exercise it. Keep it loose! But whenever I did that I would end up with a knee-buckling headache and even tighter neck muscles. I complained but nothing really changed. In fact, the reaction more often than not was contempt, as if I simply wasn’t trying hard enough. Then I went up north at the end of July and, keeping with the advice, took a leisurely kayak trip across a calm lake. Afterward, the pain was excruciating. I had to take a bunch of Advils and go lie down for a few hours – fun vacation times! But it was the straw that broke this camel’s back.

After a bunch of research, I went to my brother’s chiropractor in the Niagara area who has a different approach to treatment and the diagnosis wasn’t whiplash at all. Sure, my neck hurt, but that’s because of the muscles coming from my shoulder! My rotator cuff is torn and it’s no wonder the pain stopped me in my tracks. Exercising it is the worst thing I could do.

There’s no time to be frustrated over lost healing time but the injury is so much worse after the little water trek that I had to stop drumming. I tried, and my arm went numb and the pain.. well…I think I’ve mentioned the pain.

So I’ve endured several shockwave treatments that have been very successful for others with this type of injury, and they didn’t help. They’re supposed to break up the built up scar tissue, increase motion and decrease pain. The Dr I’ve been seeing is the type of guy who says, I’m not helping you so we need to go in another direction. Others might keep me coming for years with no results, just to have the payments flowing. Next, I’m pursuing physio with a high-level therapist. Oh, and did I mention that my family doctor won’t send me for an ultrasound to look at the extent of the problem because, “You’re not an elite athlete”? But you know me, I won’t just sit back when I feel I’m not being heard. I’m not quitting until this thing is perfectly usable and pain free again!  Led Zeppelin won’t wait forever, and I’ve got the music in me.