Mark June 22, 2016 down as the day my suprascapular nerve entrapment was (hopefully) fixed. The surgeon was not 100% certain, but expected the nerve was entrapped by a suprascapular ligament. Luckily, he made the cut. Ha ha.

The red circle, eloquently drawn by yours truly, shows where my nerve was trapped.

G-Ma spent the night and stayed with Avery the day of my surgery so Going Mom could valiantly court me to the hospital. For someone about to have nerve surgery (so to speak), I didn’t feel too nervous. But then, as waiting time in the hospital increased, I felt a slight anxiousness set in.

Nothing major, more like wanting to be done with it, but there nonetheless. I kept occupied by constantly trying to make jokes with the numerous hospital staff and posting on social media.

Grippy socks on, weird gown thingy on, and IV in. Let’s do this! #surgery #hospital #outpatient #bored

A photo posted by RC Liley (@going_dad) on Jun 22, 2016 at 10:14am PDT

I even turned on my charm to score an extra pair of yellow grippy socks to bring to Avery. I’d say she enjoyed them.

They also make the perfect sock to wear boots that are otherwise too large.

Sorry, have to move away from the cute kid and back to the shoulder. My surgery went great, the surgeon said he just had to really “get in there” (made me cringe) to get to the ligament and clear everything around the nerve. Before I knew it, I was being wheeled out of the hospital with a throbbing arm and weak body.

Once home, I tried standing and/or moving, but it wasn’t happening. I had been fasting for about 18 hours at this point and had zero appetite. I laid down and slept.

Later in the evening, I mustered the strength for a small family walk and finally ate some food. I was given hydrocodone and took a dose that night which basically knocked me out. That was the one and only time I took that, it had me constipated for almost 2 days! I’ll choose poop over pain any day!

The next day I had more strength and posed for a shoulder bandaged shot. Notice my upbeat facial expression.

Eventually, as I couldn’t keep myself still, jumping in the pool, walking in the sun and sweating had my big bandage come off in a few days.

No, I’m not a University of Texas fan, I’m a proud Sooner (Boomer Sooner!), the tattoo is from one night in Austin, TX. Nuff said.

After several pool sessions,  many Airdyne workouts, and the associated sweat, the glued-on bandages were off a few days after that. Then I got to reveal the awesome scar!

With each passing day, pain is reducing and mobility increasing. Two weeks later, my doctor just cleared me to use my water rower again. I’ve only used it once, but it’s nice to change things up after so much riding the Airdyne. Of course, I’m happy to do anything to keep active, so let it be known that I’m not complaining. 🙂

The scar is looking good, confirmed by the doc, and hopefully I don’t mess that up by doing things like….oh, hanging from monkey bars with your kid holding on to your leg to swing them around.

A video posted by RC Liley (@going_dad) on Jul 6, 2016 at 1:43pm PDT

But I wouldn’t do something so dumb, right? Never! So far so good, nothing has come undone.

I probably won’t do the monkey bar thing again for a while though. I go back for another checkup at the beginning of August. At that point, fingers crossed that I can start doing push ups and maybe use some weights.

It’s been a long journey trying to get to this point, and as long as I am mostly smart, I have high hopes of letting my nerve “wake up” as the doctor says and growing my right supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscles. Maybe I’ll be more filled out for the next beach vacation then….