Humility…

Humility is realizing that you have to ask for help and worse, you have to accept it.

Humility is having people ask for your Hebrew name and knowing you should give it.

In Judaism, while we are alive, our name is a combination of our name and that of one of our parents. When a man is called to the Torah, he is called by his name and that of his father. When he stands before God and asks God to bless those he loves, again, they are blessed in the name of their father. And when a person dies, they are forever remembered by their name followed by their father’s name.

In life, however, our mother’s name is associated with us more than our father’s name. When someone is sick and you say a prayer for their well-being, you use their name and their mother’s name. When we pray for Israel’s missing soldiers, again, we use their names followed by their mother’s name.

There are many reasons for this but I wanted to write about the feeling more than the reason. I have been very blessed to be relatively healthy. I can’t think of a time when I ever asked for prayers or had people ask me for my Hebrew name so they could pray for me. And that in itself is a blessing.

Now, in the days and hours before my operation, many of my friends, even strangers that I meet, are asking me for my name and when the operation will be. It is so strange, so humbling to be on this end of the prayers.

My mother’s Hebrew name is Sarah, though she uses her English name. Apparently, I was not given a Hebrew name at birth. Though my grandfather told me I had one, my parents said that I didn’t and so before I married, I consulted a Rabbi, who told me to choose a name and then, he named me before the congregation. He was called to the Torah and gave me a blessing, which included the name that I would be called. I choose Penina because it was nearest to the name of the woman from whom my English name was chosen. Penina is the name that appears on my Ketubah, my wedding certificate. Penina is the name that would be used to bless my children with health and safety.

So, my Hebrew name is Penina bat Sarah. Penina, the daughter of Sarah.

The operation is tomorrow…using two kinds of anesthesia – general and regional. What the doctors will do is kind of cool…especially if it wasn’t me they were operating on!

What they will do, apparently, is insert pins to “pin” the torn tendon to the bone. I should be better informed, but I’m trusting the doctor. In the next six months, the tendon/bone will reattach itself over the pins in a natural healing process. They can’t do this now because they were torn from each other and the tear is too large to fix itself. (More below.)

My first thought when I heard this was of security. I asked if I would be ringing all the metal detectors every time I walked into buildings. Kind of funny that this was my first concern and I hated the idea of this happening. It’s silly the things we focus on, but somehow the idea of the metal detectors going off each time I walked through them was just more than I was willing to face. No, the doctor explained. The pins are not metal and will disintegrate in about 6 months and therefore won’t even have to be removed.

The upside to this whole thing is they expect a 100% recovery. The downside is that it will likely take months to get there. I’ll probably go radio-silent for 2 weeks…maybe less, knowing me…but then again, not knowing the operation results…it could even be longer. I do know that I’m not supposed to move the arm at all for the fist 2 weeks.

So – I’ll wish you all health and safety and happiness in the weeks to come. I’ll ask you to remember to bless our soldiers and our country and if you spare a kind thought or prayer for Penina bat Sarah, I’ll thank you for that as well.

About the Surgery

From Wikipedia – About Rotator Cuffs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotator_cuff

Surgery for the Rotator Cuff
Surgery for the rotator cuff can be for complete tears, or partial tears/strains that fail to get better. If a torn rotator cuff goes untreated for too long, it may become un-repairable and so shoulder pain should not be ignored. Surgery often consists of removing damaged tissue and repairing the good tissue back to the bone. Bone spurs and inflammation (bursitis) is also removed to try to prevent re-tears. all arthroscopic rotator cuff repairs can fix most tears through 4-5 small incisions. On occasion a patch needs to be placed on the rotator cuff tendons which requires a larger incision. Many times, the biceps tendon is damaged with rotator cuff tears and may also require biceps tenodesis surgery at the same time.  

Rehab

The rehab for rotator cuff surgery falls into three basic categories; some damage to the tendons with surgery consisting of debridement, removing spurs and cleaning out inflammation, tears requiring repair with excellent quality tendon tissue, and tears requiring repair with poor quality tendon tissue. The first category, rehab consists of early active and passive range of motion exercises focused on maintaining range of motion for 4 weeks and then strengthening and return to sports from weeks 4-8. Repaired tendons with excellent quality will begin full passive motion early, start active motion from weeks 4-8, strengthening from 8-12 and return to sports after 3–4 months. Repairs with poor tissue quality will have no motion early on, start passive motion after 2–4 weeks, active at 6–8 weeks, strengthening at 4 months and return to sports at 6 months. Your doctor will guide you through the rehabilitation process.

4 Comments

  1. Added you to my list – רפואה שלמה.

    Hope all goes well with the surgery. Maybe you could get one of your wonderful children to post medical bulletins her

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