Eric's Surgery

Eric had surgery on his left shoulder on Tuesday, April 29th. This is the first surgery Eric has ever had in his life. So there was some apprehension. Since Angie had her baby, we had to get creative with finding child care for Anthony. Figuring out who could be with the boys in the morning and get Chase off to the bus stop, and then be with Anthony until we got home was a tall order. Thankfully, my friend Melissa said her oldest son Cody could miss school and babysit. The boys love Cody, so it worked out great.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:20am. They did all the pre-admission work and went through everything with us. We met the anesthesiologist and then the surgeon came and talked to us. If there was a tear, Eric would be staying in the hospital two days. I had not realized that going into this surgery. They said the surgery could be anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 4 hours depending on the damage.

I went out to the waiting room at 7:30am. One advantage of working at Mercy, is I could take my laptop and connect to the wireless network and work. It helped to keep my mind off of Eric and it made the time fly. The doctor came out right before 9:30 and said everything went well. Once he got in there, he found that his tendon was not torn. He removed a lot of bone and cleared out all the inflammation. His ball and socket looked healthy, along with his bicep. I was excited, because Eric didn't have to stay overnight. At 10:45am the nurse came and got me. Eric was awake and sitting in a chair.

He looked like death warmed over. I could see how much pain he was in. I asked him on a scale of 1 to 10, where is your pain? He said past a 10. So I called the nurse over. She said he already had his pills and there wasn't anything to do but wait. I said, "He needs something now, please." She came back with another pain pill and a shot of high powered ibuprofen for his IV.

He was ready to leave around Noon. The drive home was hard. Eric could feel every bump on the road. We dropped off his prescription for Oxycodone and headed home. He was tired and we were able to get him resting in his recliner. I went and got his medicine and he took a nap. The nurse said Eric could either take two pills every four hours or take one every two. So we started with the every two. Tuesday night Eric took a pill at 9pm. I slept on the couch, so if he needed anything I could get it. Well, my alarm went off at 6, and he never woke me up during the night. Now, why I didn't think to put his pain pills on the table next to him, who knows! So he went 9 hours without a pill. Needless to say, we were back to square one and even worse. He said it hurt more than right after surgery.

The doctor had left in a pain pump, but all the Novocaine was gone, so I was to remove it. It was really hard on me. I started pulling it out, and I could see it was hurting. It was making me sick, knowing it was hurting Eric. I kept pulling and pulling. There had to be at least 18 inches of tubing. It was crazy. Then I pulled off the rest of the bandages. The doctor said the cuts would look like stab wounds. The one towards the front was gaping open. I could have put my pinky into it. I got really emotional and started bawling. It confirmed that I could not ever be a nurse. I just felt so bad and I knew he was in pain. Wednesday night I went out and bought butterfly sutures to help close up the wounds.

Eric went back to work last Monday, which was crazy. He shouldn't have been driving or carrying anything, even if it was his good arm. So it was a long a week for Eric. He saw the doctor on Thursday. He starts physical therapy later this week. He said it is going to take awhile to heal.