Sally's Story
I'll start from when it first happened, and that was a couple of years ago, in the month of August. We had a lot of frost and I was walking to the car when I slipped on a patch of ice and fell onto my elbow and shoulder. I thought my shoulder was going to pop out of my body!
Over a period of time, I had physiotherapy which seemed to work. But sometime later, I did another injury to my shoulder where it got yanked backwards. I went to the doctor and continued physio, I had an x-ray and a scan, which showed there was tearing. It got to the point where it really affected my daily life. I couldn't spread bread without having a lot of pain. There were lots of things that I couldn't do, especially looking after myself even to wash my hair. I had to bend in half and just wash my hair with my hand hanging down. I spoke to my physio and said, "I can't continue with this pain. I'd like a referral to a specialist."
The specialist sent me for an MRI and then told me, "You've got a massive tear in that shoulder that can't be repaired, but I can do a replacement for you. It would have to be a reverse shoulder replacement because they can only work with the muscles and the tendons and the soft tissue that are still healthy."
So he was going to reverse the ball and socket joint and that would be screwed into my scapula, my shoulder blade. It would mean that I wouldn't have pain but I would not be able to hold my arm up above my shoulder, or move it backwards. I wasn't looking forward to that at all because I knew it would be a long recovery. After lockdown in 2021, I was in such a bad state. I couldn't drive the car further than a kilometre without really groaning and finding it very difficult.
Living with pain really made me feel down and the future looked very dismal. I couldn't imagine living with this pain for the rest of my life. One of the things that I found hurt me was the fact that I couldn't put my arms around my grandchildren; I could only use one arm. It might seem a simple thing to you, but I missed being able to really hug someone close.
My husband has had a stroke so I look after him as well. There were times when I couldn't cut his food up and I was beginning to think, you know, what a life to lead. So instead of dreading the serious surgery, I was waiting for it because I wanted to get rid of the pain.
I still didn't give up on praying because I know that God always hears our prayers. It's just so wonderful, just so wonderful. My family and I had been praying for me, my husband and my church. One morning I got up and my husband said, "We haven't prayed for your shoulder this morning." I said, "No, I haven't got any pain." Then without thinking, I reached up into a top cupboard to get a milk jug and I could do it without any pain!
Previously I had to hold my sore arm up with my other hand, then lower it slowly down again. This particular morning I did it again because I couldn't believe I could just put my arm up. It was impossible. Then I realised what had happened. The Lord had healed my shoulder and I was just lost for words. I was just so happy and grateful that He'd done this thing for me.
I rang up the surgeon's office and I said, "It's Sally. There have been some developments with my shoulder." And she said, "Oh, no..." meaning, Oh what else has gone wrong? Then I said, "Jesus has taken my pain away and I've got full range of movement in my shoulder." She sort of laughed, and she said, "Oh, Sally, I'm so pleased for you." And that was it.
It was just wonderful; I told whoever I met. I was stopping people in the street, who I know, and telling them about how the Lord had healed my shoulder. I think the biggest impact was the place where I worked, at the hospital. Over the two years, all my colleagues knew about my injury. They're very good, so helpful and kind and doing things that perhaps I should have done. So it was a wonderful thing to be able to go to work and tell them.
It was unquestionable. It had been a healing. God has healed my shoulder. It's been a lovely opportunity for me to share this good news. If you've got good news, you want to share it, don't you?