I just got back from the doctor a little bit ago and everything seems to be healing normally. It turns out that this injury is going to take a lot longer to heal than I thought - three months as opposed to the six to eight weeks that I had guesstimated. When I was growing up, it seemed like kids who broke their arms had to keep them in casts for that six to eight week time frame but were fine after that; then again, they usually broke them further down on the bone instead of a major joint that has muscles attached to that section.
They took more x-rays to check the progress and this time I asked to see them. It appears that the injury is more extensive than I thought (are you sensing a theme here?) - rather than just a linear fracture of the bone as depicted in the avulsion fracture link in this post, it appears that the fracture goes all the way around the "hump" of my shoulder which makes the bulge at the top of my shoulder look like a jack-o-lantern with its lid on. The pain, then, is coming from the fact that one of the shoulder muscles latches on to the bone right at that spot (of course) and every time I raise my arm it pulls on that section - trying to take the lid off my bone jack-o-lantern. Yeah. That's what I said. Made your sphincter clench just a little bit when you read that, didn't it? I thought so. I could also see the AC joint separation clearly and it looks like some of the torn tendons are starting to reform, which is definitely a good thing.
So, the downside is that the healing process is going to take another six weeks or so, with a total heal time of around three months. He also told me that I still can't put any weight on the arm, no rotating the shoulder if at all possible, and no raising of the arm more than 60 degrees off of my body. The upside is that the healing is going well and I'm about halfway through which means that the pain should get less and less every day and the joint should get stronger soon. He didn't tell me that I had to continue wearing the sling either and thus I think that I'm going to keep it with me for days that the shoulder still hurts or in case I'm going to be doing something fairly active where the sling will act as a reminder not to do anything stupid. This late in the game, I don't want to reinjure myself so that I have to start back from square one again. Then again, I didn't really ask him about the sling.
And no, I didn't ask him about drumming, either. Let's just keep that between us, okay? Loose lips sink ships, you know...
