The Day of the Surgery...finally!

The day of my shoulder surgery has finally arrived! (I'm obviously writing this about a week after the surgery, as I'm just now above consciousness)

Big thanks to my Mom for coming up last night to watch the kids. We had to leave the house at 5:00am to be at the hospital for check-in at 5:30. After kissing the kids good-bye while they were sleeping, we left the friendly confines of our home behind.

Got to the hospital and Pastor Ron stopped by to see how we were doing and to pray with us before the surgery. I was a little apprehensive about the surgery regarding my lung condition, so they opted to have the procedure done at Carle Hospital instead of at the Surgicenter (outpatient). Dr Robert Gurtler, my orthopedic surgeon said that he would probably keep me overnight just to make sure my lungs were stable before sending me home (little did we know how much the Lord was intervening there). On a side note, Dr Gurtler is the team physician/surgeon for all of the major University of Illinois sports teams, so he has every imaginable signature hanging on his wall.

So, they wheeled me into the surgical unit and started prepping. They gave me some oxygen and the next thing I know, the nurse is in my face telling me the surgery went well and I did great. Ugh. How do we say "woozy" in post-op? There was some major confusion in post-op regarding my room assignment, and Carle doesn't allow family in post-op, so Jenn sat in the waiting room from 7:30am till 4:15 pm. She finally left to relieve my mom who was watching the kids and had to drive up to Wisconsin for a family death that night, and of course my hospital room became available at 4:30pm.

I don't remember much the first couple of days. I literally didn't move at all for the first 48 hours. Dr Gurtler said my shoulder was horrible and questioned how I was functioning. Brett Pearman, his PA, said it was the worst Bankart lesion surgery he'd ever seen and he's been with Gurtler for 4 years. Here's how they explained it: If you are looking at a clock, the capsule (labrum) around the shoulder should cover the shoulder from 12:00 all the way around to 12:00 again. Mine was torn (in the front - anterior shoulder) from 12:00 (counter-clockwise) to 5:00. More than half way. They pulled it tight, and used 7 molly bone anchors to secure it. The posterior tear in the labrum they cinched up as well, but didn't surgically repair it. They also noticed a Hills-Sachs lesion (bone dent) in my socket, which occurred when my shoulder has dislocated. They drilled out a hole and caused the bone to bleed to produce scar tissue. If that dent doesn't fill in (they don't expect it completely will), arthritis will set in for the rest of my life. No wonder my shoulder ached when I went outside in the cool weather. I ended up staying in the hospital from Wednesday thru Sunday because when I used the morphine pain pump, it lowered my O2 sats down to 85%, well below normal for me. So I was on oxygen the whole time, and until the pain could be tolerated on oral pain meds (quadruple the amount I was on right after the accident), I couldn't go home. By Sunday, I forced myself off of the morphine pump and set it was time to go home. Sore, but ready to get out of there.

I'm now in a brace for the next 6 weeks. It's definitely a fancy brace, but huge and quite cumbersome. I'll be in physical therapy after the brace comes off for about 6 months. It will be a long, arduous process, but "no pain, no gain."

Thanks to everyone for the awesome letters, emails, meals, texts and phone calls. Jenn and I were quite overwhelmed by the support from friends and family.