First night after the surgery

Everything was going well from the time I got home (around 4:15pm), until midnight.  There was no pain in my shoulder, and I was pretty mobile although my wife helped me up and down the stairs like I was a 100 year old man.  Started taking my pain medication about 6:00pm in preparation for when the nerve block would wear off.  I got settled on the couch for the night to come. 

Let's take a moment to speak of sleeping arrangements after shoulder surgery.  Forget sleeping in a bed, no way I could do that lying down or propped up with pillows.  A recliner did not work as it seemed it pushed my shoulder out in front of me just enough to make it uncomfortable (and later to be out right painful).  So it was the couch and a bunch of pillows piled up to just above my right shoulder (I had the surgery on my left shoulder).  I would then slightly lean to the right on the pillow, and basically sleep while sitting up on the couch.  That way of sleeping would continue for some time.

Now onto how the evening went.....So around 10:00pm, I started to get some tingling in my shoulder and arm, just like the feeling when Novocaine wears off in your mouth after going to the dentist.  The tingling progressed to feeling some pain, I had taken my pain meds as prescribed, but as the evening wore on, the pain got worse.  Around 12:30am I would say I was in really bad pain and it was still getting worse.  The pain meds did not seem to be doing much (but would not want to find out how it was without them).  I kept on trying to get "comfortable" on the couch, but I now believe that made things worse as I kept moving and readjusting the way I was sitting on the couch in a vain attempt to be comfortable. 

My wife came out to see me about 3:30am in the morning and she found me sitting on the coffee table, holding my left arm and leaning forward abit (a pathetic image I know).  I had never felt anything as painful as those 3 hours had been, but the worst was about over.  I continued my pain meds, and by early in the morning the pain had subsided to what I would call "tolerable". 

So needless to say, I was glad that the evening was over.