For those of you scoring at home, Patrick “Flipper” Bertinelli successfully underwent his third shoulder / clavicle / upper extremity surgery in four years – the second in four months – yesterday at Arrowhead Hospital under the skilled knife of Dr. Evan Lederman, the official orthopedic surgeon of the Krewe of Helios-Arizona.

My three regular readers have been through this drill before – so we put together the following FAQ segment to answer important medical questions in small words and big type so everyone can understand…

QUESTION 1: So what’s the diagnosis, Doc?
ANSWER 1: Left rotator cuff tear (not the hoped-for and less agonizing partial tear). His sentence is three weeks, 24/7 in the sling. Two weeks before he can drive. Two weeks away from work – one of which is another fabulous, unfun-filled fur-cation, compliments of the corporate overlords that brought you deck-building and Navy SEALs tryouts, neither of which will happen this time around. Oh, and a lengthy parole of physical therapy.

QUESTION 2: When is Pat going to stop racing that motorcycle?
ANSWER 2: Fortunately, this injury was NOT the direct result of Pat’s racing endeavors! According to the esteemed Dr. Lederman, this “chronic” carnage of torn cartilage, bone spurs and tendon tendrils was already compromised, prior to the November ’08 motorcycle crash that precipitated the clavicle in three-part disharmony. That incident was just “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” or rather, the unplanned evacuation that tore through Flipper’s previously compromised left rotator cuff. You can file this one under “vaguely remembered skiing accident with his brother David from 10 years ago” and not a two-wheeled adventure! HOORAY!
QUESTION 3: If that’s the case, why didn’t Dr. Lederman fix the rotator cuff when he was in there back in November?
ANSWER 3: He didn’t know it was injured. The broken collarbone was so clearly broken on the x-ray, they just went right in, plated it and sent Flipper on his way. When you hear hoofbeats, don’t look for zebras – especially if there are plenty of ponies running around. As Pat began to rehab from the collarbone incident, he discovered a creepy cracking and clicking in his left shoulder. An MRI confirmed the rotator cuff injury, and prompted yesterday’s surgical intervention. In his years of putting Humpty-Dumpties back together again, Dr. Lederman has had only two similar cases. It happens.

QUESTION 4: So why is hanging out in a hospital a lot like waiting at the airport?
ANSWER 4: The question is better phrased thusly: Why is hanging out in a hospital a lot like being stranded on the tarmac at the airport? We were asked to arrive at the hospital two hours prior to Pat’s scheduled departure – 2:30 PM for the scheduled 4:30 surgery – this, after he’d been instructed not to eat or drink anything after 8:30 AM yesterday morning. We hustle through check-in… and wait… receive a nifty new carry-on bag courtesy of Dr. Lederman (It’s kind of like a pledge-drive premium – “With the third shoulder repair, you’ll receive this handsome new TOCA* duffle bag!”)… and wait… Pat goes back to the pre-op area, finishes his paperwork, dons a crisp new hospital gown… and waits…

The nurse fetches me from the waiting room so I can go wait with my husband who is waiting in pre-op… and then we wait… and wait… and wait…
… and wait…
… and wait…
… and wait some more…
Oh, look, here comes Dr. Lederman – and it’s 4:20 – what timing! “We’ve had two cases that were a little more complex than initially presented, but you’re next in line… after that guy.”
If you were sitting on an airplane, this is what you would have heard: “This is the Captain speaking, some weather disturbances out of Chicago have caused a little backup here today, and we’re second in line for departure. Just sit tight and we’ll keep you posted on our status.”
… so you can wait just a little longer… though Dr. Lederman apologized profusely for the delay (both before, during and after surgery) which is more than you normally get while you’re waiting on the tarmac…
So, I read my book outloud to Pat. We watch Men In Black II on his iPhone. We entertain the nurses. We learn that the 76-year-old woman in the pre-op cubby next to us was born on August 4, 1932 – AND PAT WAS BORN ON AUGUST 4, 1964! How creepy is that? (But we’ll take a torn rotator cuff over a bowel re-section any day of the week). I go to the bathroom. We meet the anesthesiologist – Dr. Feel Good – who sent in his pledge of support to KJZZ-NPR this week (and even knew the phone number by heart: 480-834-5627!) I send a gratuitous text message to my friends and family updating our waiting. And it was only 5:13…
“This is the Captain speaking, I’m told by the tower that it’ll be only a few minutes more. We’ll have the flight attendants come through with beverage service. We appreciate your patience.”
Because your patient is bored out of his mind and his stomach is making sound effects for the aliens in MIB2. If we were on an airplane, we would have been drinking heavily by now – instead we’re still waiting. They don’t let you get liquored up in the hospital. They just let you wait…
Finally at 6:12 PM, Dr. Lederman’s long-suffering physician’s assistant Amy arrives to take Pat back in to surgery. The cutting should take only a half-hour to 45 minutes, but they have to prep him, and he’s got time in recovery which means door-to-floor in about 2 hours (kinda like being on an airplane!)
And so I drop off the scrip, call his folks, drive to get something to eat, charge my cell battery, ponder stopping in a local bar, decide better, make phone calls, find a wi-fi hot spot since the hospital’s giving me no love, check email, pick up the scrip, return to the surgery waiting room, crack open my book – it’s 7:05 …
We leave the hospital at 9:15. Pat was understandably starving (imagine, you’ve stumbled off the plane, you have that stale, sticky airplane feeling and all you want is some cheesy gordito goodness from Taco Hell.) So I take him to the drive-thru – which had five cars in front of us – I offer to run in, but Pat says, “No – it shouldn’t take too long. Let’s just do the drive thru.”
Let’s just turn off the ignition right now… because we’ve been idling for 4 minutes and we’ve yet to give our order… We waited in the drive-thru for 15 minutes. We made it home at 10:08. He ate his gordito and digested while we watched a little TV. I gave him his Percocets, tied on his trusty hospital gown, affixed his ice machine and trundled him into the bed.
The wait was over, and truly, it was a weight off his shoulder.
*TOCA – The Orthopedic Clinic Association