And Exhale...

We are crying gratitude tears. Ryan's surgery wasn't exactly what we'd hoped for. Actually, a far cry from what we expected. As they wheeled my beautiful baby boy away from me I was under the impression they would bring him back to me in about 45 minutes to an hour. Two hours later I hit panic and begged Danny to go find out where he was. He was still in surgery. The sweet nurse, Jaime, must've known I was incredibly upset because she tried to gloss everything over with "sometimes they have more than one OR going at a time and they'll bounce back and forth. That's most likely what's taking so long." Wrong. When Dr. Nakken got in there, he discovered much, much more than he could've ever anticipated.

Ryan tore his rotator cuff (which we expected), two tears in the labrum, tore the tendons in his bicep, and the joint was completely open. It defies logic that his arm wasn't hanging uselessly by his side, that he was able to function, and Doc said he's never seen so much trauma in a kid so young.

Dr. Nakken successfully put him back together, but delivered some excessively painful news. He has grave reservations about Ry ever taking the mound again. As a matter of fact, he's pretty sure it won't happen. Ever. He will not even be released to pick up a baseball for an entire year.

My son will miss the last baseball season of his high school career.

Who would've thought that the pictures I snapped at district playoffs this year would be the last of my graceful, hard working son on the mound? I certainly didn't, but that makes them all the more precious.

I hope I never have to listen to another one of my children mourn the loss of a dream. I thought my heart was going to break completely while I listened to my son sob and moan "no more baseball, mom? Mom? No more baseball? Oh no..." over and over.

Ryan will go through hell over the next year. He will be engaging in very intense physical therapy. Dr. Nakken said that they will rehab him as though he were going to play again, in the hopes that he will regain some of the ability. That being said, he was very emphatic about making sure we understand the reality of the situation: he will most likely never pitch again. Unless a miracle occurs. We've already received our miracle; our son is alive. Ryan survived an accident that clearly should've killed him.

I will take it. I will take our one miracle and be grateful every day for the rest of my life. As many tears as I have shed in the last several days, I cannot help but thank my Heavenly Father for sparing our son. I simply couldn't live without him.

So we will put the baseball dream to bed and wait to see what it is that he was spared for...STAY TUNED for greatness.