So here’s me now, still lying in the ER, totally high as a kite waiting to hear what the verdict was. I had just got back from my Xrays and now we were waiting to see what my fate would be. Finally I met with Dr. Andreas Sauerbrey who is an orthopedic surgeon living in Steamboat and also working with the US Freestyle team. He is also just an overall swell guy. The verdict was that I would need surgery ASAP. The plan was something to do with a titanium plate and a number of screws, but at that point in time I was still dwelling over the word surgery so all the details that followed were a little bit fuzzy. While most people my age have already gone through a surgery, wither its broken bones, illness, or for most, getting their wisdom teeth out I had never. You see up to that point it was my first surgery, I don’t mean to brag or anything but I was born without wisdom teeth, never broken a bone, and never had anything done to me involving anesthetic.
The closest I ever got was maybe laying in a chair for half an hour and getting braces, and as you may know that is a virtually painless procedure, not including the feeling 4 hours after they’re on. Anyways back to the point, naturally I was pretty nervous. The surgery was going to happen tomorrow around 10. That meant I got the luxury of spending a night at home which at the end of the day was not a luxury at all. It was more of a hassle, it meant that I would be spending the night in an uncomfortable awkward sitting position, and waking up to retake my painkillers. Oh and just in case you were wondering it was Percocet, and honestly it was not that exciting, it just made me real tired all the time. Anyways with the help of my roommate Tyler, I did spend the night almost sleeping, it was like a half daze, but I did here some weird noises going on in the house, or at least I thought I heard some stuff, maybe it was all in my head, who knows. |
Ok morning of the surgery, wake up at 7, no breakfast. So fun fact, going into surgery you can’t have any food or liquid within 12 hours of the operation. So no dinner, no breakfast, no brunch, no snacks. Coach Martin picked me up at 9:30 to get to the hospital at 10 where I did the usual check in and make sure all the fun paper work stuff was covered. Next I was moved into the surgery wing of the hospital, this involved an awkward navigation of getting on one of those open backed hospital gowns. Now you have to remember that I was with one arm in a sling, and any movements still hurt. So if you would like a mental image I will do my best to describe it.
Many of you may have played the game night crawlers, now it was like that but standing up, and me trying my best to use gravity to get the cloths I had on off, and then using my right arm and hospital bed to get the gown up. Finally after that little incident I was helped into the bed and once again put on some pre surgery pain killers. These pain killers were interesting, less of a floatty feeling more of a fuzzy comfy feeling. Next we were moving, rolling through the halls of the hospital, I gotta say that was pretty fun, felt like I was a real life race car driver… Now me being as curious as I am once we got into the operation room I was trying to get a good look at everything. I saw some nurses, Dr. Sauerbrey, monitors and then I happened to see a table covered in an assortment of metal. It was like something you would find at a hardware store, there were some screws, some drill type instruments, and or course scalpels. Inside I had a sudden sense of fear, but next thing you know I was asleep. |
Later I awoke to a nurse, I was in an upright position very comfortable, looked around, asked how the surgery went, she said perfect, and then I was back asleep. Later I woke up again, this time everything was a lot clearer. I think the thing that was the clearest was my stomach growling. I was very hungry, the nurse gave me chocolate pudding, I figured it would be ok to treat myself after the last two days hadn’t really gone my way. Then visitors came in, I got to see my teammates and friends, I found out that people had come early to see me but I was still asleep. It was really nice knowing that people put so much effort just to come make sure that I was ok. If you were there thank you, if you wanted to be there thank you as well. I spent the rest of the day in bed going in and out of sleep mode, honestly most of the day is a little bit of a blur because of the anesthetic that was still wearing off. Before I knew it I was getting dressed and walking out of the Hospital. I guess it also had snowed something like a foot while I was inside. I was Pretty upset to hear that people had already gone cross country skiing that day, while I was sleeping…
The predicted recovery time before I could start training again was 2 weeks, with the rest of the team heading off to Europe It was decided that I would spend those 2 weeks back at home working with a team of Physio therapists and chiropractors. My mom would be flying in that night and we would be on our way back to Canada the next day.
The surgery was no problem, and with everyone’s support and care it made the entire process go by much faster and easier. When I initially broke my collar bone I was expecting months to go by before I could be skiing again. And with the predicted time of 2 weeks I was truly happy, I knew that I would be back in Steamboat in no time, and that soon I could put this all behind me.
Thank you everyone,
Nathaniel
The predicted recovery time before I could start training again was 2 weeks, with the rest of the team heading off to Europe It was decided that I would spend those 2 weeks back at home working with a team of Physio therapists and chiropractors. My mom would be flying in that night and we would be on our way back to Canada the next day.
The surgery was no problem, and with everyone’s support and care it made the entire process go by much faster and easier. When I initially broke my collar bone I was expecting months to go by before I could be skiing again. And with the predicted time of 2 weeks I was truly happy, I knew that I would be back in Steamboat in no time, and that soon I could put this all behind me.
Thank you everyone,
Nathaniel