Living in the Gap Between Hope and Fear: Navigating Uncertainty with Grace

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:06

Hey there. Welcome to getting to Good Enough. I'm Shannon Wilkinson.

Janine Adams: 00:00:10

And I'm Janine Adams. We're here for practical and fun conversations about living with more ease and way less stress.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:17

Yep. We're all about embracing progress over perfection. So grab a tasty beverage and let's get started. Hey, Janine.

Janine Adams: 00:00:26

Hey, Shannon. How you doing?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:28

I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

Janine Adams: 00:00:30

I'm good. I'm glad to see you.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:32

You too. And I don't know if you noticed, but I wouldn't say footloose and fancy free, but I'm moving slightly better. This is how much I can move my arm up.

It's. Wow. I can move it bent about halfway between my waist and my shoulder.

Janine Adams: 00:00:51

That's amazing.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:52

And you're not wearing 45 degree angle.

Janine Adams: 00:00:55

Yeah. You're not wearing that crazy sling.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:59

No.

Janine Adams: 00:01:01

And it's only a week. How long has it been since we recorded the one where you were wearing that sling?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:07

Ten weeks.

Janine Adams: 00:01:08

A week?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:09

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:01:09

So great.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:10

Something like that. Yeah. I fully weaned out of it just in time to prepare for another shoulder surgery. Yay.

Janine Adams: 00:01:27

Unbelievable.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:29

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:01:30

So what's happening? Why do you need more surgery?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:33

Well, I had some complications which resulted in getting some imaging, an MRI and an ultrasound which shows I have a new since surgery, rotator cuff tear. The surgeon is not believing that it can be true. Oh, yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:01:58

She doesn't believe the imaging.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:00

She doesn't believe the imaging. She thinks that, you know, there's some. Something from. Because there was a repair right next to this one.

And she thinks, like, you know, maybe it's fluid, maybe it's some tissue, whatever, because everything looked good. And I've actually seen photographic evidence inside my shoulder to prove it, that everything was good when she closed up. And, you know, I was very.

I'm very compliant, wear my sling, you know, wore that crazy brace for five weeks.

And so it seems highly unlikely, you know, without some sort of traumatic incident, a fall or something, or, you know, like sleeping without the brace or something like that, that I would have a new tear.

So she's gonna head in there for a diagnostic arthroscopic procedure and see what's going on and take care of some issues that I'm having because, you know, I have hypermobility but somehow managed to also get frozen shoulder.

Janine Adams: 00:03:20

It's not fair. Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:23

So she's going to take care of that stuff, make sure there's no other issues, and hopefully close it back up. And I'm in a. Just a regular sling for a day or two. And I get back to my PT schedule and everything, so.

Janine Adams: 00:03:41

Not. So just a little blip, hopefully.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:43

Just. Just a little blip. That's best case scenario. That's what we're hoping for, the sort of best possible worst case scenario.

Because, you know, there's always, like, really horrible things that could happen.

But, like, sort of the most likely worst case scenario is that it is, in fact, a new tear that needs to be repaired or perhaps one of the repairs failed or something, and she needs to do some more intense work and either fix a repair or do another repair or something. If that's the case, then that basically resets the clock to square one and I'm back fully immobilized for five weeks and.

And then starting PT and doing all of that stuff.

Janine Adams: 00:04:45

But the. The plan is for no matter what she finds, it'll get fixed while you're under.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:52

Yes. I won't. I mean, I suppose there's some scenario where I would need another surgery, but odds are, no, she. She will take care of the. The.

You know, I have to sign a consent form before, and it says, you know, diagnostic, arthroscopic, whatever, whatever, and any other indicated procedures.

Janine Adams: 00:05:16

You gave her a carte wash? Yes.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:20

You have a blank ch check. Do whatever needs to be done.

Janine Adams: 00:05:25

Just get me fixed. Oh, my gosh, Hannah. So that's just such a drag. I mean, it's such a drag that you have to have a second.

A second surgery on the shoulder and that you don't know until it's over what your future, the rest of your year looks like, essentially.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:44

Right. Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:05:45

Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:46

I mean, I could be in a. In the gunslinger almost until the holidays, or I could be, like.

Well, on my, you know, rehab path and have, you know, increasing motion and, like, moving on to restrengthening. So. I don't know. I don't love that. Not knowing. Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:06:17

I hate not knowing generally, in. In general, but if I were in your seat, I'd be. I don't know, just. I don't know. I can't even think about how I'd feel.

I'd either be going crazy or depressed. I'm not sure.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:06:32

Yeah, I've experienced the full range of emotions since finding this out, and I don't know, it just feels like double irony or like, what. What?

Janine Adams: 00:06:45

It.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:06:45

What is it you can't. What is it you can't. Double indemnity? No. Double jeopardy. Double jeopardy.

Like, you can't be tried for the same crime twice or something, and it's double jeopardy.

Janine Adams: 00:06:56

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:06:57

Like, it seems so unfair.

Janine Adams: 00:07:00

Yeah, absolutely.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:02

Absolutely. Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:07:05

So how are you dealing with it?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:07

While I am holding out hope and I totally trust my surgeon, I have a feeling that there is going to need to be a repair. And I. And I'm not normally like, plan for the worst, like assume the worst is going to happen kind of person.

I think of myself as more of a optimist with like a little bit of a worry habit, but I'm just sort of expecting that that's what's gonna have to happen.

Janine Adams: 00:07:50

So you're not making any major plans for fun, for example, for the rest of the year, not planning any correct skiing trips?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:59

Well, yeah, well, I'm not going skiing ever again anyway.

Janine Adams: 00:08:04

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:07

Yeah. I haven't skied since I fell on this shoulder and exacerbated those problems and had to have surgery a year after that, so.

Janine Adams: 00:08:16

But you guys do take skiing trips that you go along and don't ski, right?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:21

Correct.

Janine Adams: 00:08:21

And.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:22

And we'll be doing that. We do that every year between Christmas and New Year.

Janine Adams: 00:08:26

That's right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:27

So you'd be placed.

Janine Adams: 00:08:29

Yeah. And you'd be out of the gunslinger by Christmas.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know, we just had a friend who last year started a tradition of friendsgiving the weekend before Thanksgiving and he invited us and I said, I may or may not be there. I hope that y' all have fun and I hope I can join you, but I may be on the couch heavily medicated. I don't know. Right.

Janine Adams: 00:09:06

Yeah. It's kind of like when you get called for jury duty.

You don't expect to be selected for a jury, but you can't make plans in case you are selected for a jury. Yeah. Right. So you just hedge those bets, I guess. Yep.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:21

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's hard and, and it was, it was rough, the, you know, sort of coming around to the idea of having to go through this because I was at the point of my recovery process of I can't take one more freaking second of this and I have to get out of this brace and I have to get my life back and I can't lay on the couch anymore. And. And as much as I love everyone on the Great British Baking Show, I've watched all of the seasons twice that are available on Netflix.

I did the math the other day and watching the Great British Baking show has been my part time job for the last six weeks.

Janine Adams: 00:10:13

Oh, that's funny. I remember in an earlier episode we talked about what you might watch. I believe we talked about that.

And, and I think you said Something like maybe Station 19 or. I don't know. Yeah. One of the shows which we love, you and I, but yeah, I think Great British Baking show is a nice, gentle, gentle selection.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:10:37

It's so nice. And they're all my friends now. I have all these friends that I hang out with and I can go back and visit them whenever I want.

Janine Adams: 00:10:44

Whenever you. Yeah. It does sound like the silver lining of the whole experience.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:10:52

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:10:53

Is the excuse to just binge. That part sounds really good to me. But yeah, I wouldn't want to pay the price of searching.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:11:02

It's.

Janine Adams: 00:11:02

It's.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:11:02

Yeah, it's a. It's a definitely a consolation prize. Right.

Janine Adams: 00:11:10

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:11:10

But, yeah, so I've.

I've sort of gone through all of the feelings and ultimately, as much as I didn't want to do it at first, she's like, let's just rehab your shoulder, see how it goes. And then I started having more pain and more issues and she's like, well, we can rehab your shoulder and see how it goes.

Or I can go in now and we can do these other things, which will be helpful and if there is a tear, we can repair it. I thought about it and it was like, what if I don't do it now and I have to go through all of this again in a year? Right.

Janine Adams: 00:11:58

And for that year, lived with the uncertainty of whether or not you're going to have to go through it again.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:03

Exactly. And that, that amount of uncertainty felt pretty intolerable.

Like, as much as I don't want to have another surgery next week, living with the possibility of having to in a year and really start from scratch, like having rehabbed these repairs and then having to go back, have surgery and go through a whole another 6 to 12 month rehab thing like that. No, no, thank you.

Janine Adams: 00:12:39

Get it behind you while you're still in this mode of life where everything's on hold or your opportunities to do things are limited in any case. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. That's a tough decision. I bet.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:57

Yeah. Um, it's. It's hard to sign up for something like this, but really, like, when it was all sort of laid out, I didn't. I felt like there was.

That choice was pretty apparent. Like what, what the best choice for me was. Yeah.

And yeah, so I feel good about it and I'm sort of riding that wave of I may not be able to do much of anything till mid December or I may be able to like in a week be feeling good and back to PT and like getting on with my Life.

Janine Adams: 00:13:53

Yeah.

And then knowing there's nothing you can do but beyond that until you wake up and know like that just that uncertainty, it's only, I mean you're doing it next week so you don't have too many more days of that particular uncertainty.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:11

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:14:12

What's, what are they going to be, what are they going to find in there and what's it mean for me? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:17

But still that will get resolved and, and you know, I'm, I'm getting a lot of practice.

Well, you know, this whole experience I'm getting a lot of practice with like well, coming back to now, coming back to the present moment because it's pretty easy to go out into the future and catastrophize or try to figure things out and you know, I just don't have enough information.

Janine Adams: 00:14:49

Right.

And right now you, you're feeling better than you were a week ago and better than you were three weeks ago and, and you don't want to spend your time in the future and not enjoy the fact that you're actually got some mobility and you're looking bright eyed and bushy tailed and yeah, it's funny.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:15:08

I'm feeling, I'm feeling so much more clear headed than when we record recorded the last episode. But I'm having more pain in my shoulder so whatever that means.

Janine Adams: 00:15:22

Right.

I'm having a much smaller, much, much smaller version of uncertainty in that I'm traveling next week and we're recording this just before the reduction in flights is going into effect because of the government shutdown. And I've got a notification that my outbound flight to New York is not affected.

But Southwest is giving everybody the option of changing flights if they want. But like we don't know what flights are going to be canceled so what good does that do?

But I thought, well, coming back, my flight back here on Thursday is, leaves late like 6:45pm so it seems like more likely to have a miserable travel time on a later flight if cancellations mean that there are problems. But I talked to Barry about it and he's like, well we have, you have no, you have no information to base a decision on.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:27

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:16:28

And like yeah, because I was thinking about moving to an early in the day flight, then I'd miss a date in New York, which you know, that would be a bummer. And also that flight could get canceled just as easily as the flight that I'm on.

So I decided to just stick with what I stick with what I got because there's no basis to change It. And even though I'll be nervous about having a late in the day flight, probably, but I'll just go with the flow.

Make sure I have enough nuts with me and reading material and phone charger.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:02

Yeah. Have a, have a plan. Right.

And, and that's such a, that's such a valuable lesson is, you know, sort of think through the possibilities and how you might deal with them and what would make things more comfortable for you if you're dealing with, you know, a canceled flight or getting stuck in the airport or whatever, whatever the situation is, and prepare and then let it go.

Janine Adams: 00:17:34

Because let it go, that's the thing, right? Yeah, yeah. For something like this, it's like, why let anxiety over something I can't control, that I'm prepared to handle, affect my enjoyment for.

Until that time comes? So.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:49

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:17:50

Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:50

And I'm sure, I know you've been in situations in the past where you had to know that you could be home on a certain day and that might cause you to make a different decision.

Like you might not go based on the fact that you could get stuck in New York for an extra day, but you're in a position where, you know, you, you're willing to be a little uncomfortable. And if you're stuck an extra day or whatever, you can manage it.

Janine Adams: 00:18:24

I don't have any appointments that can't be changed. Right, exactly. Yeah. So that's.

And I think that's one reason the airlines are allowing people to change flights without a penalty now is because people do have situations where if they get stuck, it's a problem.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:18:40

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:18:40

Or if. Yeah. If they don't get there, they might as well not go.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:18:44

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:18:45

Yeah. So, yeah. Anyway, it's small potatoes compared to what you're. Which you're looking at, but somewhat it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:18:53

Sort of doesn't matter because the uncertainty is still uncertainty and it's uncomfortable and you're still managing it, and it can still cause a lot of anxiety if you don't kind of have a plan of how to live in that space of uncertainty.

Janine Adams: 00:19:12

Yeah. Yeah. One of my friends I'm meeting, New York, she lives in South Carolina. She reserved a rental car. That was her backup plan for Thursday.

So if need be, she'll just drive like. Well, that's pretty smart. And avoid LaGuardia altogether. Right. So I. I think I live too far away to do that. I. I don't want to.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:19:34

Although we know that you have driven places that you normally fly in the.

Janine Adams: 00:19:39

Past, and I've driven between New York and St. Louis a number of times. But that was my younger self and it doesn't appeal to me as much now.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:19:49

No. And now you're in a position where you can hang out until you can get on a flight.

Janine Adams: 00:19:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It'll be fine. So you just have about five days and then you'll know.

And then we'll know what, if any impact we have on this might have on the podcast.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:06

Yes, yes. So actually this, this is airing. I mean, it's not right now. We're recording it ahead of time, but it's going to air the day after my surgery.

Janine Adams: 00:20:22

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:23

So when this, when we publish this, we can put it update in the show notes of, you know, anybody want to put money on it? Is this going to be.

Janine Adams: 00:20:35

What are the odds?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:36

Let's get this. Yeah. Is this a five day recovery or a five week recovery?

Janine Adams: 00:20:44

You're right. We can update in the social media in the show notes if you want to. Yeah.

And then we have a couple that we've recorded already that we haven't published yet.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:55

Yeah.

So it'll give us a cushion of episodes to publish after the surgery so that regardless of how it goes, we will be able to continue to put out some new content. Because that was the double irony of this was like, oh, let's start the podcast. Oh, I have to have shoulder surgery.

Wait, wasn't that a big part of why we stopped it before? Oh, yes. Okay, let's do it anyway. Oh, wait, I have to have another shoulder surgery.

Janine Adams: 00:21:34

Yeah, that's. It's crazy how your shoulders have affected this podcast.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:21:38

I know. Who knew I was carrying the weight of this podcast on my shoulders.

Janine Adams: 00:21:43

On your frail shoulders. Oh, my goodness. Well, I certainly hope for the very best for you.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:21:55

Thank you. Thank you. I. Whatever happens, it'll be fine. Work through it.

I mean, I still have a good six to 12 months of physical therapy, whether it starts in a week or in six weeks.

Janine Adams: 00:22:17

Right. So living the dream.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:22:20

I know how to have fun. Well, we would love to hear from, from you, our listeners and watchers. How do you manage living in uncertainty?

Is there anything out in your future that you are uncertain about that you wish you could feel better about? You can let us know on social media, on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube or at getting to Good enough.

-GTGE: 4843

you can also head over to gettingtogoodenough.com and sign up for our weekly show notes so that you can get notified in your inbox about episode. I know. And then you also have an email and you can just reply to us. It makes it so easy. We love that when people reply to our episodes.

So, yep, until next time, this is Shannon Wilkinson in Portland, Oregon, and Janine.

Janine Adams: 00:23:46

Adams in St. Louis, Missouri.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:23:48

And we hope that Good Enough is getting easier for you. Thanks for joining us on Getting to Good Enough. We hope you heard something that makes your life just a little bit easier.

If you did, leave us a review or share this with someone who's looking for their own version of Good Enough.

Janine Adams: 00:24:06

Thanks for listening. See you soon.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:24:18

I always feel like I have to wait for the music.

Janine Adams: 00:24:21

Music. But you don't.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:24:23

No.

Janine Adams: 00:24:26

Goodness.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:24:26

That's. That's post. That happens in post. Post.

Janine Adams: 00:24:31

The lingo.