I’m not an idiot. I felt the change the moment the ball left my fingers. It wasn’t the same grinding I’ve heard over the last six months. The soreness I felt wasn’t the same as when I’ve overdone it and needed to rest for a game. This was a rip. A tear. A burning like I’ve never felt before sliced through my shoulder, and my arm went numb. The stretch and snap of my career as it plummeted out of reach.
Doctor Fancy Scrubs steps forward first. “Lukas, I’m Dr. Meier.” He goes to shake my hand, and on instinct, I lift my right arm to return the gesture; the burn in my shoulder and armpit reminding me I can’t. He senses his error, and nods, moving torest his hand on the rail next to me instead. “You have a severe tear in your labrum.”
Fuck.
My head falls back on the bed. I knew that’s what they’d say, in a way, but hearing the words out loud takes me out. “So, what does that mean?” I finally ask. “I can’t finish out the championship? More PT?” We’re two teams away from winning the championships. My pitches have been on fire. Our best batters aren’t fucking around. We’ve been breaking team records, nearly unstoppable.
Until today.
A heavy silence settles over the room. It’s Dr. Meier who finally speaks. “We’re past the point of therapy now, Lukas. You have a severe, likely Grade 3 tear to your labrum.” He raises his hand to make a fist, sliding his opposite finger around the outside. “There’s a ring of cartilage that encircles the shoulder joint, it protects?—”
“I know what a shoulder looks like, Doc. I've been nursing this injury for months, so save me the pretty speech. Just tell me what the plan is.”
“Lukas,” Coach booms, his stern gaze telling me to watch my attitude.
Dr. Meier doesn’t seem fazed. “I cleared my schedule, so we will get you to the OR first thing tomorrow morning. It’ll be an arthroscopic surgery, very minimally invasive. I’ll get in there and see the damage, but I anticipate having to sew that ring of cartilage back to your shoulder socket. The good news is, it’s an outpatient surgery, so you won’t have to spend the night in the hospital.”
“Oh, wow,” I murmur under my breath. “Lucky me.”
The room falls silent again, and someone sighs, likely my coach. “Listen, Lukas,” he says, coming to sit at the foot of the bed. “You know how I feel about you. You’re an asset to ourteam.” He pauses, as if choosing his next words carefully. “You have a hell of an arm, better than guys who have been playing years longer than you.” His eyes dart over to the arm in question, and I follow his gaze to look at the useless thing to my right. “This is our only option right now. We’ll get you surgery, and once you’re ready, we’ll get you in the best PT program we can find. We’ve called your parents—they’re on their way to pick you up.”
My head snaps up at that. “You called my parents? What the fuck are they going to do about it?”
“You’ll be wearing a sling for six weeks following the surgery and be completely immobilized, so you’ll need help. It's best if you go home and stay with family until we know the next steps.”
I swallow the thick lump in my throat. Next steps. I’m not an idiot. I can read perfectly between the lines here. They don’t know what my shoulder will be like after surgery. They don’t know if I’ll ever recover, if I’ll be at my full level of functioning.
They don’t know if I’ll ever return to baseball.
“Mom, you don’t need to help me up the stairs, it’s my arm that’s fucked, not my legs.”
My mom doesn’t loosen her grip on my good arm as she helps me up the stairs to my childhood bedroom. Her hold is tight; she has one arm wrapped around my waist as if I’m about to topple over any second. “Don’t sass me, Lukas. The last thing we want is for you to fall backwards down a flight of stairs and ruin your shoulder.”
“Or hit your head, knock the last bit of sense out of ya,” my older brother, Theo, calls from behind. He’s a few steps below us, lugging my bags up the stairs.
My family drove to Florida for my surgery. Theo and my dad packed up most of my apartment and road tripped it back to Iowa in the pickup while my mom sat at the hospital with me. Once I was released, I doped myself up on pain meds, and my mom and I flew back to Iowa in a haze.
“Mom,” I fake whisper, knowing that Theo can hear us. “Have you noticed Theo's hair is getting gray? Someone should tell him he looks like an old man.”
She purses her lips to hold back her smile, and I can hear Theo mumble something behind me. At twenty-seven years old, my brother’s sandy brown hair is starting to quickly turn shades of gray. It doesn’t actually look bad, but like hell I’d ever tell him that.
My mom swings open the door to my childhood bedroom, and I pause at the threshold, taking in the surroundings. The bedding is freshly washed, the top comforter even folded down halfway like in a hospital, waiting for me.
There’s a twinge of pain in my chest when I look around—the walls filled with pictures, a shelf of trophies that showcases my career. A framed picture of Mags and me at senior prom still sits on the night stand. “Home sweet home,” I mumble, gently pulling out of my mom’s grasp to move over to the bed. She follows a pace behind, and I stand for a minute, looking around at my home for the foreseeable future before sitting on the edge of the bed.
Theo sets my bags on the far wall before leaving to go grab the other ones from the truck.
“What can I get you? Are you hungry?” My mom is a caretaker by nature, always needing to coddle one of us. I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes through my bags, washes my already clean clothes, and folds them for me before putting them in my drawers.
“I’m fine,” I grit out, moving to lie back on the bed. I wince with the motion. My body is so fucking stiff from being cramped in an airplane seat for the last few hours. She rushes to my side, helping prop up two pillows behind me. “Can you get me one of the pain pills? I’d like to sleep.”
She stands nervously. “Sure, sweetheart. But I really think you should eat something. I don’t like the idea of you taking them on an empty stomach.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Okay…” She pauses. “What about just some pudding maybe? Applesauce? Or a piece of toast?”
“Mom,” I say, a little more sternly but forcing myself to stay calm. “I’m not hungry. I just want to sleep. Please.”
