Swimming for Freedom by Tera Bradham

Author:Tera Bradham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

Covenant Scar

I’m a surgeon at heart.

A chance to cut is a chance to heal.

—Kevin Beam

By the time we returned to Colorado, I had no hope left. My parents took me to P.F. Chang’s for my last meal before I had to stop eating for the operation. I sat in the booth outside, trying to focus on the taste of the food instead of the headache that felt like hammers were pounding my head. Whether from stress or other physical factors, horrible headaches had become my companion recently. My mind just couldn’t handle my body constantly being in so much pain anymore.

The next afternoon, August 6, 2013, I went in for my third surgery on the same shoulder. I had no expectations and no grand revelation of faith like I did before my first surgery. I had prayed all I could, and I resigned myself to whatever happened. To me, this surgery was just a final shot in the dark.

My parents prayed for me, and nurses had me initial my right arm in Sharpie, affirming it was the correct shoulder on which to operate. Then the anesthesiologist came in. He started pumping drugs into my IV, and I immediately became dizzy. They wheeled me back to the operating room, and as the three nurses in blue scrubs met me, they could tell I hadn’t lost consciousness yet.

“Could you help us, dear? Move your body onto this table for us.” I helped them transfer my body from the gurney onto the operating table.

“Thank you so much for helping me,” I said. They smiled. I barely had time to take in all the bright lights and metal contraptions before darkness encapusulated me.

Meanwhile, Dr. Schlegel had just finished his fourth surgery for the day. His final patient was a twenty-year-old female swimmer from the University of Arkansas. He perused her charts one last time:

Name: Tera Elizabeth Bradham

Allergies: None

Medications: None

Previous Operations:

Date: 3/23/11

– SLAP lesion, labral repair

– Career-ending

Date: 7/18/12

– Bursitis

– Capsule debridement

– Inflammation

– Labral repair appears perfect

– No invasive repair

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