Just as I suspected.

The idiot doctor I'd been seeing at the student health center for my shoulder did not explain to me the full details of my injury. He made it seem like it was just this tiny little tear, no big deal, and I shouldn't still be in pain and blah blah I need to get over it. Well, the surgeon doctor today told me that the tear is big enough that it has caused an area of the tissue to completely separate from the shoulder socket bone that it is supposed to be attached to. And so the longer I go on, the chances are high that that separation is just going to get worse and cause even greater pain than I am already experiencing. Surgeon doctor said I had two options, physical therapy and surgery, and since physical therapy will cost me at least $30 per session, and I tried it when I tore cartilage in my knees and it didn't work and I still had to have surgery, I wasn't too keen on spending money on something that may or may not work and might just end up delaying an inevitable surgery anyway. He said he completely understood that and so, okay, we'll do surgery (the stupid health center doctor also said he couldn't imagine that this surgeon doctor would want to do surgery, so...wrong again, bucko!)

The good news is that they have an opening two weeks from tomorrow, and my little 24-hour hospital stay a few days ago was in NYU's medical center, and I ended up already having had done all the tests they needed pre-surgery, which eliminated a lot of hassle. I even had a chest x-ray done which made absolutely no sense to me at the time!

The only possible hold up that could prevent me having the surgery done on the 21st is I have to get clearance from this new epilepsy specialist that the hospital docs arranged for me to go to. Because I injured my shoulder to begin with in falls during seizures, they don't want to operate and then have me just fall on it again. So basically I just have to get a letter from the epilepsy guy saying they're doing everything they can for me.

But yeah, other than that, I have to go to the student health center so a primary care doctor there can fill out some medical clearance form and fax it back to the surgeon's office and already have an appointment for next Monday the 13th, and then on the 14th go to the hospital and have a totally normal pre-surgery anesthesiologist meeting. Nothing I haven't dealt with before. The anesthesiologist meeting and surgery are both only done on Tuesdays, and the health center couldn't fit me in for the clearance appointment next Monday, which is why it is spread out like this.

But being spread out like that also gives me a little bit of time to talk to my professors and get class stuff in order. Since I don't have class on Friday, and the surgery will be on a Tuesday, I should only miss two days of class and then be back the following Monday.

So yeah. That's the plan. Here we go again...