Surgery Went Well, Sort of

August 2017

In the past few years Larry has had 2 surgeries. Both times it took a lot longer than the doctor said it would. After it was over I was told the situation was a lot more complicated than they anticipated. So when the doctor told me his shoulder surgery would take an hour I was pretty much expecting it to be at least 2.

It was 3.

And the 1-inch incision turned out to be about 4 inches. Larry’s like that.

He does everything in a big way!

He was still in recovery when the surgeon came out to tell me what happened. He knew the ligament was shredded. It was worse than he thought. He also said he had to “release” the bicep muscle.

Excuse me… what?

He snipped the bicep tendon. He neglected to tell me you have 2 bicep tendons in each arm and you can get by just fine with one. The physical therapist told us that later.

The good news: he should make a full recovery.

The bad news: it’s a long and painful process.

The sling is a ridiculously complicated contraption.

A lot different than the handkerchief they put on me when I broke my arm when I was 7.

I had to take pictures of how the sling went on so when we took it off we could put it back on.

 His 1 inch incision turned out to be a lot bigger. 

The little incision down further was where they put the scope.

He’ll get passive physical therapy (where the therapist does all the work) for 4 weeks. That should keep the joint loose to keep his range of motion good.

Then he moves on to assisted physical therapy for 4 weeks then active for 4 more weeks.

It’ll be a while but they assure us we’ll be adventuring again in no time! He’s off the oxycodone, the one that some people get addicted to, so that’s good. The big problem now is sleep. It’s hard to find a sweet spot when they put you in a torture devise! But I think we’re past the worst of it.

Hopefully these posts will get more interesting soon.