Thank you..

A big heartfelt thank you to all of you. I really appreciate your emails, phone calls, flowers and prayers before and after my shoulder surgery! Thought I would give you all a little update on my progress..

For those of you that don't know, I have struggled with shoulder problems for the past 3 years. Mainly, my shoulder catches all the time, then my entire arm goes numb. Most of the problems were caused by holding a 10 to 15 lb camera for 8 to 10 hours/day. Long story short, my shoulder was excluded from my health insurance as a "pre-existing" condition, so until this year I was not able to get treatment. I did physical therapy for much of this year, but it didn't help. We did MRI's and when the results came back I was told I definitely needed surgery as I had some torn ligaments and a labrum tear. Problem was, I was already booked for the entire year, so I had to wait until the majority of my jobs were finished.

I decided to have my surgery done by Dr. Burton Elrod of Elite Sports Medicine. He is the surgeon and on-field doc for the Tennessee Titans. I figured that he is experienced with working for people whose careers depended on the surgery, and I cannot afford to have this surgery twice (as I cannot shoot for 3 months after the surgery!)  So Wednesday afternoon we went in for the surgery. They numbed me all up and Dr. Elrod came in to talk to me one more time before they knocked me completely out. He raised my arm up to do some tests and when he went to flex my shoulder, my entire shoulder came out of the socket. (Thank GOD they had already numbed me up!) Dr. Elrod re-assured me that it was a good thing I was getting this fixed while my mom's face drained of all color. I don't remember much after that. Everyone there said I was the happiest patient they had in a while. Apparently Dr. Elrod asked me what I had been shooting lately, and I started to tell him, then burst into singing Def Leppard songs. Mom said I sang "Pour some sugar on me" to the entire operating room before I fell asleep. Gotta love those drugs.

I woke up and mom took me home. They gave me a nerve block, which paralyzes your left side and blocks any pain you might have... so... I felt great for the first 1o hours. But then the block wore off and of course it hurt like crazy. I have been on some pretty major pain pills ever since, but they make are now making me nauseous so I am trying to wean myself off of them. It will be a slow recovery, but I am just glad the worst of it is over. I will going home to Chicago for the majority of the next month to recover, and then will return to Nashville in January.

Again thank you too all of you for your thoughts and kind words. An especially big thank you goes out to my mom, who took off work and flew down here to help me. She has not left my side and I don't think I could have done this without her. Love you mom, you are the best.

Have a great week ya'll and I hope to talk to you soon.  Hugs, Krista  :)

P.S.  This post would not be complete without at least a few pics.... This is what I have been doing for the past 3 days... Sitting in bed.  Fun times.

Right after getting home from the hospital. Feeling pretty loopy and not feeling any pain! (Yeah, that didn't last long... lol) In this pic : Me = Whack job.    Ha!