Mark's Bicep Surgery

At the end of January, Mark slid a box across our driveway, and felt a pop in his arm. He could tell it was something bad. Within a week, he went into the doctor, and they tried a round of steroids. That didn't help, so a week later he was back at the doctor. The second trip to the doctor, they took x-rays to make sure it wasn't a broken bone. It wasn't, so they tried a two week does of a stronger steroid. That didn't help either, so he went in for an MRI. He had ruptured his distal bicep tendon. That was going to require surgery and quite a long recovery. We had our Pulse Endurance Run in the middle of March, so he put the surgery off until after that. On March 28th, he finally went in for surgery. Everything went well. They had to make an additional cut in his arm, because so much scar tissue had formed around the tendon, so they had to dig it out. In a nutshell, they had to drill a hole in the bone of his forearm, thread the tendon through the hole, and clamp in down. He was in a splint for two weeks, and is now in a mechanical brace for six weeks, and then they will reassess how he's doing. The full recovery until he can bear weight is six months. Not super fun when you're going into a summer with lots of plans, and are about to move. 😓

All set!

He doesn't like needles one bit! He almost passed out when they put his IV in. I was dying! 😅

He was pretty funny when he was coming out of surgery. He kept telling me over and over not to leave, and would say, "I just want to be with you." 😂 The nurse thought he was quite romantic. Then he would randomly ask if he could go running. At one point he remembered that they said there was a possibility that they would have to use a cadaver bicep tendon. He opened his eyes really wide and asked if he had a dead person inside of him. So funny!

Once he got home and was a little bit more awake, he was pretty much back to normal. Oreo always knows when something isn't quite right, so she was right there, ready to lend her services. 💙 Sweet little pup!

This is what his incisions looked like after he got the splint off.

My bionic man! 😍

Recovery is going good so far. He can exercise a little bit, but no running for awhile still. He does the bike at the gym, and the elliptical as long as he doesn't swing his arm. He can also walk on the treadmill, but is supposed to stay off trails for a while longer.