Surgery

I suppose I should get around to writing about my surgery, the reason for six months off.

I went to bed at 1 am last wednesday night, after taking two midterms, working 3-10, and then rushing to turn in a matlab project before midnight.  At 6:30am Thursday I woke up and got ready to go.  By 10 I had an IV and was complementing all the nurses on their different hats and asking if I could wear one, then I woke up in recovery.  I was told that over the hour I was in surgery my doctor found a second, larger tear in my labrum that hadn't shown up on the MRI, along with a little flap of my labrum that was dangling around in my joint where it didn't belong.  He cut out the damaged part between the two tears, and the grody little flap, then sewed my labrum back to the bone.  All better!  Luckily I had a "robust" labrum, so now I have a regular sized labrum that's totally fixed.

I'm glad that I made the decision to undergo surgery, especially finding out that I had two tears.  The smaller tear that I knew about was one tearing the labrum from the bone, and the second tear was one ripping the labrum almost in half a little away from where it meets the bone.  I'm not sure yet what, if any, impact having two separate tears will make on my recovery.

Now recovery!

I'm six days out of surgery and it's hard.  I was supposed to take my sling off and shower Sunday (three days post-op) and it was a miserable and humbling experience.  Having my sling off for the first time gave me a glimpse of how hard this is actually going to be.  My arm dangled uselessly by my side.  It felt like my arm weighed a million pounds and I couldn't do anything to move it, and it hurt so so bad.  I didn't think my surgery was or really would be painful until I took my sling off that first time.  I was so demoralized and upset.  I'd been feeling so good!  I felt like this was easy and I was going to magically be all better as soon as I got my sling off.  The reality of how hard I'm going to have to work after being out of the sling is finally setting in.

I think that last night I hit rock bottom of this recovery stage.  I had taken tylenol instead of my prescribed pain medication and everything hurt while I was trying to fall asleep.  My back hurts most of all, but whatever I did and wherever I moved, something hurt.  It was freaking me out and I was getting so frustrated.  I couldn't get myself to relax and it was getting worse and worse because I was letting my worries and fears overpower me.  I had to let go of my stress and convince myself to relax and breathe, that it would be okay.

I will get through this, one small victory at a time.

My most recent victories: getting to sleep lying flat on my back last night instead of sitting up on the couch, and being able to take my sling off without breaking down into tears and wanting to puke.

In her most recent blog post Shauna Coxsey said it perfectly, "All I want to do right now is go climbing. All I ever want to do is go climbing. There is no magic to dealing with injury. We all know exactly what we are supposed to do with regards to rehab and staying positive but sometimes that is just hard."