Bailey's Shoulder Surgery

Bailey had shoulder surgery over President's weekend. In July she did a Half Ironman, and while training she had a little mishap. In late June or early July she got clips for her bike. Her first time trying them out, she got unclipped, but then tipped off the bike on the other side. She put her arms out to break her fall, and tore the labrum in her shoulder. We felt so bad for her! She had been training so hard. She still did the race, and did great, but ironically it wasn't the biking that the injury affected, but rather, the swimming. She couldn't rotate her shoulder to do the front crawl at all. She was really worried about making the cut off time for the swim. She made it by 10 minutes, and did great in the other two events. We didn't know at the time what was wrong with her shoulder. We figured maybe once the race was over and she could rest it up, it would start feeling better. As time went on, it actually started getting worse. It got to the point that it hurt her to even drive. Over the holidays we got her in to see a doctor and to get an MRI. That's when we found out she had a pretty good size tear. We wanted her to get it all fixed before she got married, so we scheduled her surgery for right before President's Day, because we knew she'd have an extra day off school. 

She was pretty nervous about the surgery. She's a girl who will rarely even take over the counter medicine, so the thought of getting put under freaked her out a little bit. She had the surgery on a Thursday morning, and everything went great. When the doctor got in there and started poking around, he realized that there was a second pretty good size tear that didn't show up on the MRI. I'm so glad he looked around and found that one. She had both tears fixed, and they disconnected her bicep, and reconnected it in another place. That's supposed to help the recovery go better, and decrease the chance of re-injury. 

Bailey only had 3 1/2 days at home to have us help her, and to learn how to do things with one arm before she had to be back at school. It stressed me out! She recovered great! She's a trooper, and since she doesn't like meds, she didn't even take the hard stuff. She was totally off everything within a few days. She has to be in a sling with no arm movement for 8 weeks! Ahhhhh, that's tough when you have a job, and you're in the middle of a semester! When they say no movement, they literally mean no movement! She can't even lift her arm away from her body to put deodorant on. Getting dressed is a huge chore, and she can just forget about doing her hair for 8 weeks. She's gonna be living in hats. You don't realize how much you need both arms for until you can't use one. 

Getting all prepped for surgery. She had the nicest people helping her!

A little nervous, but ready to go.

This was right when she woke up and we got to go back and see her. It was so sad! She had watery eyes, and just looked so out of it. She saw us, and the first thing she said was, "Where's Mason?" I guess she had asked the nurse where he was right as she was waking up. The nurse said she'd go get him. Only two people at a time could go back to the recovery room, so when me and Mark showed up, she was quite concerned about where Mason was. I guess her days of needing Mom and Dad most are over. ;(

It only took her a few minutes to perk up and get right back to her cute, happy self. She said some pretty funny stuff too.

She got to come home that same day. We thought she'd get home and sleep the rest of the day away, but she didn't sleep one bit. She just sat around trying to get comfortable. Mason was the best! He took really good care of her, and made sure she had everything she needed. She's got herself a keeper.

Triska, Michael, Alyssa, and Crew sent her flowers! Yellow flowers are her favorite!

 Stop scrolling now if you get squimish!

This was our first look at her incisions, and we were a bit concerned. They looked HUGE! The two areas where they went in with the scope looked okay, but the long incision from the bicep looked really bad (to us).

This is once we could take all the dressing off of it.

She was still in the middle of a semester, so she had homework while she was recovering. It took her longer to do because she had to type left handed.

She wanted nothing more than to feel clean and have her hair washed. So the day she had to leave to go back to school (Monday), I helped her bathe and wash her hair. That was quite an ordeal, and there was no way she was going to be able to do it alone once she was back in Boise. I was really stressed out about it. But doesn't she look happy, clean, and refreshed in this picture! She even had real clothes on.

This is one of the tears they fixed. This is the one that showed up on the MRI, so they were expecting this one.

This is the second tear that they found. There isn't supposed to be a hole where the tool is. So glad they found this one.

I believe the arrow and the 'B' is where they snipped the bicep tendon.

When they reattached the bicep, they anchored it to the bone. It looks like they used parachute chord to tie it down. I don't understand most of what I'm looking at in these images, but I think it's fascinating to see pictures of them working on the inside of her body. So cool!

She's done great back at school. She is two weeks post op, so she only has 6 weeks of wearing the sling to go! The hardest thing has been sleeping. She has to sleep sitting up. It wasn't so bad when she was home, because Mark and I have a bed that you can adjust, so she slept in that. But back in her little dorm room is a whole different story. She's having a hard time being able to sleep. The other hard thing is getting herself ready. It's almost impossible. She can barely wash her own hair. The first time, she just went into a salon and had someone do it for her. That was very helpful, but now she's figuring out how to do it herself. She got her stitches out in Boise, and the nurse told her not to worry about the incisions. She said they looked great, and she will probably barely even be able to notice a scar after awhile. She even showed Bailey a scar that she had, that started out looking just like Bailey's, and you could hardly tell it was there. That made Bailey feel a lot better.

She's had struggles along the way, and I'm sure there will be more to come in the next 6 weeks, but she's kept a great attitude, and is learning how to adjust to life with one arm. For the most part her professors have been great about it. There are a few big things she has coming up that we aren't sure how she's gonna manage with one arm, but I'm sure she'll work it out. We're just glad she's all fixed up and on the mend.