Well, it finally happened. No, I didn’t win the lottery or draw that elk tag in the Black Hills I’ve coveted for several years. This event was way more likely to occur – “inevitable” is what many have told me. My palpation shoulder gave out, and I needed to have surgery on it.

Apparently, sticking your arm into tens of thousands of cow rectums is hard on that joint. I wonder why? After all, they don’t squeeze down on your arm or jump while you’re inside them when the cowboy running the headgate gives a shot or mouths them. Nor does a guy lean toward the cow with his feet back after the 10th critter slips and paddles her hind feet backward, shattering your little toe. That downward pressure from the leaning sure can’t be hard on a shoulder joint at all!

Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised when I went to the people doctor, after my arm popped out of socket for the fifth time, when he told me it would take surgery to keep it in place. And, he added the sweetener that if we did it now, he could go in arthroscopically and my recovery would be faster and better. Sure, I could continue to be a onery cuss like I had been and put it off, but after a decade or so of observing treatment success rates of chronic feeder steers, I elected to take the jump while the odds of success were still in the 90% range.

So, a few little cuts and stiches later, I became the one-armed bandit with a five-month recovery plan. With strict orders to “not do anything stupid” from my wife, who doesn’t want to pay for two of these procedures, my breadth of veterinary availability became limited to what I could do with one hand and that organ between my ears. And I’ve had to use that organ to figure out how to do things that seemed so basic before. Have you ever tried to fill a syringe with one hand tied behind your back? If you’re curious, use your chin to hold the bottle as you aspirate the medication. Just be super careful you don’t slip and jab the needle into your jaw. 

Honestly, while I can be, and have still been, helpful this spring identifying the causative agent in scours outbreaks and recommending treatment protocols, it’s frustrating being unable to do so many of the jobs I’m used to tackling this time of year. I’m sure the wives reading this column whose husbands have had surgery know the look and attitude of discontent when a normally active man is forced to sit still. It forces us guys to do something we usually abhor doing.

We have to receive help.

Help with chores and farm work we’d rather do ourselves. Help with deadlines and projects that need finishing. Most humbling of all, help directly post-op with the basics, like putting on a shirt in the morning or fastening a seat belt. For men born of and thriving through self-reliance, it hurts when we realize we cannot do those things.

But, just like a bum shoulder on a cow doc, it is inevitable. We’ve seen our fathers or grandfathers succumb to the ravages of time. Men seemingly invincible in their youth, now struggling to walk from bed to the kitchen table in the morning. Unless the Lord plucks us suddenly into His bosom at a more tender age, we will follow the path trod by those before us. And to navigate this twilight, we will need help.

And the reality is, our independence is a bit of an illusion. As my priest would say, “How can you ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps?’ That’s physically impossible!” Yes, we are capable of doing many fantastic things, but those tasks require support from our family, our friends, co-workers and advisers, like the nutritionist or tax accountant. Even the mountain man trapping on his own in Alaska needs people to buy his furs. And most of all, every breath we take isn’t of our own doing but is a gift from God.

This lesson is the greatest fruit of my surgery (though an arm that stays in joint will be a close runner-up). Proud and lonely may be a great theme for a Western movie, but I enjoy a life humble and filled with good people far more. And come June when recovery is over, I’ll be chomping at the bit to work with those folks outside again!  

PHOTO: It's sure hard to preg check a cow with one hand tied beside your back. Photo by Jake Geis.

Jacob Geis is a veterinarian and blogger in Freeman, South Dakota.