Dad has to go in for surgery

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This last summer, my dad hurt his shoulder fairly badly while he was carrying some heavy furniture at work. For the record, he is 68 years old, a single parent, and is within one year of retiring.

My aunt also just had surgery for a similar bone-spur, but this spur was on her back.

Unfortunately, the pain has not gone away, so he went to see a specialist recently, and as it turns out, he has to go in for microsurgery on his shoulder as he has a torn rotary cuff and a bone spur that is causing him problems. He will be going in this Monday, and he estimates that he will be laid up for several weeks. I overheard him mentioning to my sister that he may or may not be able to drive for a week. This is of great concern to me as I am both deeply afraid of driving and am quite horrible and overwhelmed when I did make my few furtive attempts to practice when I was younger. Part of me is scared that I will have to drive. As for the operation, he is going to have one of his friends drive him home. I struggle with thoughts of being selfish and way too absorbed with myself most of the time.

The other thing is, he is going to be completely dependent on me and my sister to help him, not that I am complaining, but my sister is a very lazy person who never does very much to help my dad or me with house work. So right now I am feeling burdened and red-eyed.

Where does this ocean go? I am just hoping that my moving to Idaho next year will not be affected by the housing crisis.

rotator cuff surgery isn't that dangerous, but does usually require a long recovery period. A lot of times, the arm goes in a sling. But the exercises you have to do tend to hurt. His shoulder will not likely ever be the same and he will likely lose mobility even after recovery. I don't recommend such surgeries unless there is a clear advantage to doing so.

If he has an automatic transmission, he can drive as soon as the pain meds stop making him loopy. Otherwise, its the same as driving DUI. Usually, it takes a week to become acclimated to the pain meds or stop taking them all together. Or simply, if he can avoid pain meds, then he can probably drive with one arm any time he wants. But its generally best to take pain meds when he's in pain because not taking them when he needs them can set him back also.

I'm an RN.

My dad is going in for the same surgery as yours. His wasn't due to an injury and he is 61 years young. He has only had one surgery (not including tonsils and the usual when you are young) before and that was they had to take his appendix out. That was a few years ago. He had to stay in the hospital for a few days because it burst and he's lucky to be alive. I'm scared that he will die during the surgery and the date is October 29th. When my mom had rotator cuff surgery she nearly died. It became infected and the doctors were surprised that she made it. My dad feels like he's dying when he has a headache so I don't really want to know how bad it will be when he will have this surgery if he survives. If he dies, I will go back to being suicidal and depressed. He will probably cry from all the pain even though there are pain pills. He also gets in a bad mood when he hurts so I don't want to know how angry he will get and if he will yell at everything. I'm also afraid that he'll lose his job over this. They will say, "You are too unhealthy to do this job, you have been missing too many days of work." If any of that happens I will die. My manic self right now will crash and burn into another depression.

The problem is, he is a single parent (for reasons I do not wish to divulge), and neither me nor my little sister have DLs. My sister generally enjoys driving, but she does not even have a permit.

As for me, I have a learner's permit, but me and him decided mutually this last summer to let me not drive, with the exception of, and EXCEPT FOR AN EMERGENCY (whatever that means?) and that I could use mass transit when we move to Boise next year. I use what limited mass transit is available here in NW Montana to commute to and fro college every weekday.

The thing I hate is, that why do I have to live in a low population density region like Montana that generally believes in conservative ideas about how people should be completely self-reliant (and that means everyone should have a car and be able to drive). I had a friend last year who hounded me endlessly about my decision not to drive.


And, for another thing, now I am concerned that my dad will die during surgery. While he was picking me up from the bus stop, he told me where I could find his will if something goes wrong during surgery. Now I am scared, because my dad could possibly die on Monday.

As for your quotation about how you can drive almost as soon as you are out of the drug-induced delirium, N4MWD, I read on a website discussing the surgery that you should not drive for at least six weeks. Is that true?

One more final, my dad wants to move next year to Idaho to be closer to family, will this affect the opportunity my family has to move (as moving requires heavy lifting)?

Surgery on his shoulder will leave that arm in a painful state. He won't have full use of it and will never regain 100% mobility of it. Since it hurts, a lot of people take pain meds. Those med are what keeps him from driving. Without any mind altering drugs, he can drive if he is physically able to do so with one arm. There are non-mind altering pain meds that he can look into such as tramadol and toradol. The latter is only used for extreme pain because it has a lot of harmful side effects if its used continuously.

Yes, anybody can die from anesthesia. If he has had surgery before, the risk drops considerably. Even still, the risk is extremely low, but still there. A living will and other things need to be set up ahead of time just in case. At the hospital, they will ask about that and if he is an organ donor. Those questions are routine for everyone and do not reflect any risk.

There is risk in everything. If you give a kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and he eats it, most of the time he will just get fat. However, a very very small percentage of kids will drop dead because of an allergy to peanuts. Modern anesthetics are very tame compared to those used 20 years ago.