With my rotator cuff surgery scheduled just two days away, I’ve already been practicing living life with just one arm. In fact, I am dictating this blog on my iPad, my first time trying it out. Thanks to my wife’s nudging, I’ve been reading up on getting through the first week post surgery and also getting the house ready. It’s amazing how much we take for granted having two functioning arms! My first week after ankle surgery was relatively hassle free, since it didn’t affect my sleep that much.

Getting by with one arm

Here are various things that I’ve been trying with just my right hand. First things first, when I wake up I reach for my glasses 🤓. My glasses are frameless and the “temples” are soft and flexible, but boy getting those on to my ears were hard! Who knew!

From there, here are basic things that I’ve been practicing:

• Changing clothes, especially getting a t-shirt over the head and under the left hand with a pretend sling
• Putting toothbrush on the brush
• Toilet paper (yes TMI, I know)
• Washing just the right hand with soap
• Putting on socks & shoes – luckily it’s summer and I can mostly get by with flip flops
• Showering and scrubbing with just the right hand
• Sleeping with my left arm in a pretend sling

Digitally, turning on dictation on the phone is huge. I’ve been trying out Safari’s “Listen to page” to read out websites so I don’t have to scroll with my functioning right hand. Also with the Apple ecosystem, using the keychain (password app) and/or passkeys with face recognition means less typing to access various Internet essentials across all devices.

I have to remind myself that after the nerve blocker wears off, I could use my left hand fingers, just can’t exert or activate my shoulder muscles. Luckily there are a bunch of practical amenities that make some of these easier.

Amenities for using just one arm

We had an old recliner and my son helped me bring it downstairs. I have a rolled up towel for lumbar support and tons of pillows for resting the hand. A travel pillow for the neck helps. Watching a show on the iPad is gonna be like flying business class, only at home! And no seat belts either 😜. From what I’ve read, sleeping on the back is the hardest – especially since the arthroscopic insertion is from the back of my shoulder. My wife recently bought a book stand with a night light that will be really handy on the recliner.

For showering, adding a pump top to the body wash bottle will be helpful. I also found a bendable, silicone brush and scrubber to get to the armpits, back and scalp. Compared to driving an automatic with just the left foot (learned how to do that after my ankle surgery!), driving with just the right hand will be trivial.

Lastly, something unusual. I’ve written about intermittent and extended fasting before and the research that shows that going into a surgery in a fasting state helps with recovery🤞🏼. I’m doing 24h fasting (just breakfast, then water-only) every day leading up to the surgery and the plan is to continue it for a week after. I’ll likely pop Ibuprofen & Tylenol with breakfast since I can’t take them on an empty stomach. However, I’ve bought some Arnica pills to help with inflammation, but also gonna load up on salmon, chard, ginger, pineapple for a wholesome anti-inflammatory breakfast.

Those are some of the prep before surgery. Will have to see how much this helps. More on that when I dictate the next blog with a sling on.