Nate's Surgery

For a few years now, Nate has been experiencing some intense pain in his right shoulder. He was a pitcher in high school and continues to play the sport that he loves deeply. Baseball. Softball, now that he's out of high school  but still, a lot of throwing involved and it's gotten to an unbearable point. This is a guy who plays at least two nights of softball a week and usually one of those nights is a double header.

Once realizing his fate, we made an appointment for an MRI.  In the MRI, it showed a small tear in the labrum and a really bad bone spur.  So, the next step: Surgery.

We made a surgery appointment for a day in November and awaited its arrival. The day came and the girls went to Aunt Summer's house to play while I took Nate in for his surgery.  They were 2 hours late getting him in because of an emergency surgery that came in. So, we just sat and waited.  The doctor had told us that he wouldn't know how bad the tear is until he got in there and checked things out in surgery. 

After an hour and a half of waiting, I got the news that he was out of surgery and doing well.  The doctor came out about 10 minutes later to let me know what all went down in surgery.  He said the words we were NOT wanting to hear. The tear was MUCH worse than they anticipated and his recover would be extensive.  We were hoping for a 3-6 month recover and instead we got an entire year.

I knew this news would kill him and I had made the conscious decision that I wasn't going to tell him till the following day when the meds had worn off.  They gave me permission to go in and see him and as he looked at me all drugged and half alert, the first words out of his mouth were: "How bad was the tear?"  then he followed with the next question: "short recovery, right?"  I shook my head to inform him of the truth and I've never seen such a look of sadness and disappointment on his face as I did then. He got emotional with the realization that sport would not be in his future for the next year and it hit him pretty hard. Aside from sports, Nate has become an avid Gym rat.  He lifts at least 3 times per week and this would not be an option for quite some time. He was worried about losing the muscle in one arm and being lopsided. :-) That's kind of what happened, but he'll gain it back quickly.

2 weeks later, we went in for his post op appointment where they took his stitches out and gave him an order for Physical Therapy twice a week.  

He has been sticking with his stretches and his exercises and the doctor said he could hopefully swing a bat by the fall, but absolutely NO throwing.

I guess we'll see what the future of this year brings.