What does this thing feel like?

Today is day 7 from surgery and I feel this is probably the first day where I can offer some kind of idea of what the GraftJacket in my shoulder feels like; now that some of the latent pain of the surgical incisions is beginning to abate.

This is not to say I can 'feel' it as such. I don't have a sense that any 'thing' is there - not at the moment anyway - but I do get a sense that the joint feels more solid and connected than it did. It aches, but the pain is very different from what I had before - plus it's changing as it's healing. I've spoken with a few people who've had these kinds of graft operations. Some of them have been out of a sling within a week and encouraged to start using their arm quite quickly. I'm in a sling for six weeks - so what's different here?

My particular operation was perfomed 'fully' open. This means splitting the fibres of the deltoid and detatching some of them from the acromion - like lifting the cylinder head off an engine - to gain access to the medial (inner) portion of the rotator cuff. The deltoid is reattached and closed afterwards and has to heal in the same way the repaired rotator-cuff has to. So, early mobilisation of the joint is not really an option here. Some of the other people I spoke with had this done without deltoid detachment, but my procedure required it because my cuff defect started much further into the medial cuff tendon - where it meets the muscle. So what can I look forward to? Well, I'm hoping that the solidity of the cuff repair means that I will progress more quickly than with a conventional repair, once I'm out of the sling. I can start pendulums at two weeks, passive exercises at three, then fully active from six. Strengenting will probably start after week eight - with conventional cuff repair, this is normally around week twelve. I can't say whether the deltoid detatchment will complicate things - one hopes not, but the human body can be very mysterious!