Today marks one month since I had surgery on my shoulder to address a labrum tear. I don’t know the mechanism of this injury, though I do remember acute pain starting 8 years ago, which has been kept at bay by chiropractic, and only surfaced occasionally up until last fall when it got so bad I couldn’t sleep. My doctor recommended physical therapy, but a gut feeling that something was really wrong prompted me to argue for an MRI...even after my initial request was denied. Indeed, the MRI revealed that I not only had a torn labrum, but also a cyst on the supraspinatus nerve causing atrophy of my rotator cuff. Having only just recovered from knee surgery, the prospect of facing another major procedure was devastating. However, there was no other option: physical therapy couldn’t fix this. On January 28, I got five new scars. My orthopedic surgeon said my labrum was “completely shredded,” and no longer able to support the bicep muscle, which had to be reattached to my humerus bone. What this meant: 1 month of not using my dominant hand, 4-6 months of not surfing, another snow season cut short. I’m 38 years old, and sometimes it feels like the wheels are falling off this body of mine. I asked my surgeon whether it’s time to stop doing the things I love to do, now that he’s fixed two knees and a shoulder on my battered bag of bones. “I don’t think so,” he said after thoughtful consideration. “It’s your body, you get to choose..” He paused, searching for the right words, but I found them first. “How I want to spend it.”