Halloween this year was truly memorable for us. The first part of October, my husband
started riding the frontrunner to work. From the front runner he
catches trax and then from the trax he rides his bike for about a
mile to get to work. He stores his bike in a locker.
This has been working out really well and he is enjoying having less
stress, some time to do other things while traveling, and getting
some exercise. Two days before Halloween, he was riding his bike
from work to trax. He was a little late and so trying to go pretty
fast through some construction. He didn't see that there was some
construction tape strung across an area he was going to go through.
When he saw the tape all he could do was try and stop and
instinctively grabbed the brakes.
Unfortunately, he grabbed the front
brakes a little too hard and immediately flipped over the handle bars
and landed pretty hard on his left side. Luckily he was wearing a
helmet. My husband said, when he first crashed, he picked up his bike and
in his dazed state thought that his brakes, wheels, and pedals were
all pretty messed up. Then he realized his handle bars where just
facing the wrong direction. All was right when he turned them around
and his bike seemed to not be damaged. My husband soon realized that something wasn't right
with his shoulder. He was able to ride his bike with one arm to the
trax where he put his bike in the locker and luckily was there in
time to catch the front runner. He said this was a pretty long ride.
My husband wrecked the night we were setting up for the ward Halloween
Carnival. I had to leave things in our oldest capable hands and go pick my husband up from the front runner and take him to instacare. Our local
instacare was pretty busy, so based on their recommendations we
ended up going to a Community ER where they took x-rays and
determined he had a AC separation in his left shoulder. They gave
him morphine, a sling and a referral to see an orthopedic surgeon in
3 days.
The next morning, we determined the surgeon they had referred us
to wasn't covered by our insurance. We found one that was and I
called to see if they needed a referral. The receptionist said that
they didn't need a referral, but the surgeon in that group who
specialized in shoulders was going out of town so he was pretty
packed. At that time the earliest appointment was over a week away.
We explained the situation and how we really didn't even now if he
would need anything more done. She decided to have the surgeon look
at the x-ray and then get back with us.
That afternoon she called back asking if we could come in right
then. The surgeon then let us know my husband had a complete AC separation
which means he tore all the ligaments that connect the collar bone to
the shoulder. We hadn't seen the x-rays before this point and could
see that truly his collar bone was sticking up just like we thought. My husband wasn't too fond of it when the doctor pushed down on his collar
bone to see how much he could reduce it. The surgeon recommended that
he have surgery. He was operating the next day (Halloween) and would
fit us in if we wanted to or else we would have to wait about two
weeks. It really was good timing for it was on a Friday, thus my husband
would have the weekend to recover and hopefully not have to miss more
work.. We truly felt blessed for my husband didn't have to start healing
for two weeks and then have surgery and go through all that recovery
again. Since he has to wear a sling for six weeks after the surgery
it would have been that much longer in a sling. Everyone we
interacted with at the surgery center was amazed we were able to get
in for surgery so soon. So were we and so grateful. The surgeon was
Wayne Mortensen. I can't tell you how many people we had tell us that
he had operated on their shoulder and how wonderful he was and what
a great job he did. We truly felt blessed that the surgeon our
insurance covered came so highly recommended.
The surgery for this involves putting what was described as a
button through the collar bone and the shoulder bone (we will just
stick with lay man's terms). These are then connect together with a
string ( as my husband puts it). This all holds the bones together and in
place until the ligaments heal. My husband did really well with the
surgery. Much to the kids dismay, he didn't say or do anything when
coming out of the anesthesia. Just asked the same questions over and
over and slept. He had a nerve block so wasn't in much pain, just
numb (Think epidural for those who have had this). My husband hated this
feeling and wasn't too happy when this wore off in the middle of
night. He, of course, couldn't sleep either, probably because he slept
quite a bit after the surgery. The doctor had prescribed Perocet
which He didn't like the way it made him feel and he felt like
ibuprofen helped just as much. He basically slept the weekend and was
feeling pretty good Monday and able to head back to work.
We were blessed that it was his left shoulder, since he is right
handed. My husband is now, once again, driving back and forth to work. He
sports a sling and foam block for support so things stay in the
correct angle. He currently has to wear this all the time, even to
sleep. He hates it and will be grateful when six weeks are up. For
the most part he's not in pain, just gets achy. Personally, I think he just wanted to get out of the yard work that we had planned to prepare for winter.
I must give a big thank you to my parents who stepped in so my kids could go on with their Halloween plans which involved my oldest attending a school dance and Jolly J hosting a party at our house. I'm sure we were quite the sight as I brought home my zombie husband. Like I said, truly memorable!
