The Surgery

This is the final post in a 3 part series. So if you are reading this first, I suggest going back and reading "the campout" and then, "the injury" and then this one. Otherwise, you won't really know what I am talking about. Hey, I don't know what I'm talking about either so just go with it.

So after the campout, we get home and Kieth continues to go to work everyday for two weeks. He is in a tremendous amount of pain, but he has to wait until he gets home after work to take any medication because it makes him kinda loopy. In the mean time, the lump on his shoulder is getting bigger and we don't really know what else to do. Finally his appointment with the family doctor arrives and it's time to see whats going on with his shoulder. Me, always the optomistic one, goes in thinking he will have to wear the sling for another few weeks while his shoulder continues to heal. The family doctor immediately refers us to an orthopedist because the x-ray's do not look good. Fortunately, the doctor that fixed Riley's knuckle about a year ago was available and ready to see us. We went right over and he took one look at Kieth's shoulder and the x-ray's and started scheduling him for surgery. He confirmed that Kieth did in fact have a shoulder separation, but that it was much worse than the ER doctor had identified. Thanks to a rookie ER doctor, Kieth walked around for 2 weeks with the top of his shoulder blade not only separated from the joint and the collar bone, but basically just being kept in place by a small amount of tissue and his outer skin. That explains why the bump kept getting bigger. Oh Holy Cow!


Anyway, he had surgery Monday November 10. The doctor took out all of the joint tissue and drilled 3 holes into his shoulder bone. He then sutured his bones back together with 3 fiber wire sutures. He said he should be able to play ball again and regain full use of his shoulder within 6-8 weeks. He had to stay in the hospital for the day and night so the kids had fun in his room after school.


Hunter was curious about all that stuff on his dad's hand.


Hunter had breakfast with his dad the next morning. Kieth was so ready to get home because the beds are not made for tall people. His ankles hung over the end and kept falling asleep.


And here I am taking advantage of the morphine drip. He hates pictures and never smiles without alot of grumbling, so I snapped as many photos as I could while he was doped up. Speaking of doped up..... Now he is at home convalescing and boy is this another adventure. Kieth has never taken many medications so he just gets nutty on these pain meds. He is letting me read him the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, and for the last day and a half, he has been hollering from the bedroom for a credit card and the phone. I finally had to ban him from watching any more QVC, HSN, or any type of infomercial selling the next greatest invention or products you can't live without. Oh well, at least he is healing now and able to take off work. Things could always be worse. Three cheers to a day in the life.......