SLAP stands for superior labrum anterior to posterior, which basically indicates the way in which the labrum tore.
The Cause
In January of 2008, I suffered an injury to my shoulder while playing in a church league basketball game. Shades Crest B team (my team) was up on Shades Crest A team by about 20 points. With 20 seconds left until halftime, I decided to pick up the point guard at half court and play some crazy defense for the last reamining seconds with hopes of getting a quick steal and a lay-up. In hindsight, this play-all-out-until-the-end-no-matter-what mindset would be my downfall, but hey, it was worth it. I slapped the ball away from the point guard and quickly raced to try and recover it. After diving for the ball with my right arm outstretched, a player on the opposing team also dove for the ball and landed on my right shoulder blade. You can picture how this ended up. At first, I thought it was a serious injury, but after a week of icing the pain had subsided. Nearly 10 months later, after my last triathlon of the year (and after swimming 10k a week for practically the whole summer/fall) I started lifting some weights and doing some push-ups and pull-ups. After starting this weight lifting routine, I felt as if I had aggravated my shoulder a little bit, but I couldn't really tell. It didn't really hurt; it just felt like something was not right.
The Verification
Around the start of December of 2008, my shoulder still felt jacked up so I decided to get it checked out. After getting checked out by a local and highly recommended sports medicine doctor, Dr. Kim Fagan, she determined that I most likely had torn my labrum. The labrum is a piece of cartilage that basically holds your shoulder in place. Since my shoulder was still in socket, I figured it couldn't be torn that bad, so at least I had that going for me. The only way to verify the tear it is to get an MRI, so that is what I did next. It's a pretty interesting process. They inject a dye into your shoulder cavity that shows up as a bright color on the MRI so that any tear can easily be seen. My next visit with Dr. Fagan was pretty quick: she came in, told me it was torn, I told her to schedule surgery asap, she said ok, and then I was gone. Hah. The next week I went to see Dr. Lyle Cain of The Andrews Group at St. Vincent's Hospital to get him to check me out. He verified that the labrum was indeed torn, and I scheduled a surgery for that Friday.
The Surgery
My surgery was on a Friday morning at 7:00 am. I had to get there at 5:30 am, so my parents showed up at my house at 4:30 am in order to drive me to St. Vincent's hospital. At about 6:15 am, they took me back to one of the pre-op rooms. After asking me 30 times what shoulder my surgery was supposed to be on (I thought about telling them the left one and then saying "haha just kidding" but I don't think they would have found that amusing), they stuck an IV in my left wrist and went over some basic procedural information. Next thing I knew, I was being wheeled down to the OR. Once in the OR, they hooked me up to some sort of IV and started to put the mask over my face to deliver the anesthesia. The anesthesiologist wasn't doing a very good job of holding the mask secure to my face, so when someone said "why isn't he falling asleep," I started laughing. Next thing I knew, another doctor started applying a little more pressure to the mask, and after a few deep breaths I was gone. When I woke up, I was in a recovery room.
The Rehab
The rehab for this surgery blows. That's about all there is to it. For the first 4 weeks, I had to wear a sling with an immobilizer pad. For the first 2 of those weeks, I couldn't even actively bend my arm. Of course, with my luck, the surgery was on my right shoulder. I considered myself to be fairlly decent with my left hand, but there are some things that are just flat out difficult to do with the opposite hand. Brushing teeth, for example, is one of those tasks that becomes extremely frustrating because most people (including myself) lack the fine muscle control required to brush with their opposite hand. I wasn't supposed to drive for the first 10 days, but I did anyways because work is 5 or 6 miles away and I'm not going to walk there. Taking a shower with your non-dominant arm only is pretty interesitng, as is pouring from a completely full gallon of milk, using a mouse and typing on the computer, and getting dressed. Another annoying thing is that you have to wear button down shirts for the first few weeks because the injured arm can hardly move. Besides the multide of tasks that were made extremely difficult and time consuming, daily rehab is required in order to get back to 100% strength and mobility. It's been about 3 months so far, and the rehab has probalby averaged about 30 to 45 min a day the entire time. The first 4 weeks consisted of exercises working mainly on flexibility, and now I'm working mainly on strength. At the 3 month mark, I'll be able to start doing some light swimming in the pool, as well as biking on the road. I've been knocking out a bunch of hours on the trainer indoors, but it is getting REALLY boring! In conclusion, I would not recommend tearing the labrum to anybody, especially if you enjoy swimming, biking, or running.
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