Adult Amateur Interrupted: Recovering From Shoulder Surgery - Part One

5/31/2026

There’s a specific kind of heartbreak that comes with not being able to swing your leg over the saddle when riding is woven into the rhythm of your life.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the “I’ll never ride again” spiral. Just the quiet ache of suddenly not being at the barn four days a week. Not hearing your horse nicker when you walk in. Not throwing hay, the quiet moments spent grooming or replaying your last lesson over in your head while in the truck on the drive home.

For me, that heartbreak currently comes with a sling and my own version of stall rest.

Two weeks ago, I underwent left shoulder surgery that included an arthroscopic subacromial decompression and anterior acromioplasty, open subpectoral bicipital tenodesis and an open distal clavicle excision (DCE). Which sounds less like a surgical plan and more like the USEF rule book...nobody fully understands.

Here’s the simplified version:
The arthroscopic subacromial decompression and anterior acromioplasty were essentially cleanup procedures to reduce impingement and create more (any!) space in the shoulder joint where inflammation and irritation had taken over.

The DCE involved removing a small, approximately 8mm, portion of my collarbone at the AC joint to relieve pain caused by osteoarthritis that had progressively made riding, sleeping and basic daily movement increasingly painful.

These pre-op x-rays show how inflamed and deteriorated my AC joint had become. You can see the significant narrowing of the joint space along with cystic changes caused by prolonged bone-on-bone contact.

And then came the surprise plot twist.

My MRI showed the arthritis clearly, but apparently my shoulder had another secret. Once surgery began, my doctor discovered a SLAP tear that hadn’t appeared on imaging. A SLAP tear is damage to the cartilage at the top of the shoulder socket where the biceps tendon attaches, and it explained a lot of the pain and instability I’d been experiencing.

That discovery meant adding a biceps tenodesis, where the damaged tendon is removed from its original attachment point and secured lower down on the humerus with anchors or screws.

So while I went into surgery expecting one thing, I woke up with a much longer recovery timeline than anticipated.

Cool cool cool.

I’m halfway through four total weeks in a sling, which feels like a prison sentence designed specifically by someone who has never tried washing their hair one-handed. Every task suddenly becomes either a strategy game or a comedy sketch. Sports bras? Impossible. Cutting food? Suspiciously athletic. Sleeping comfortably? HAHAHAHA.

But honestly, the hardest part has not been the physical pain.

It’s the mental whiplash of suddenly losing such a huge piece of my identity and routine.

The barn has always been my reset button. No matter what was happening in life--work, stress, anxiety, burnout--the second I walked into the barn and smelled shavings and fly spray, my nervous system exhaled a little. Now there’s just space where that routine used to live. The timing feels especially cruel because Ollie and I were really progressing.

You know those stretches in riding where things finally start clicking? Where communication feels clearer, rides become more consistent and your partnership starts leveling up from “trying” into truly understanding each other? That’s where we were. Not perfect. Not magical movie montage material. But solid, better and connected.

Now I’m sitting on the sidelines watching spring turn into summer while trying not to think too hard about losing a total of about 16 weeks of saddle time. That part stings. Hard.

I know healing is temporary, horses don’t keep score, muscle memory exists and the barn will still be there when I come back. But, I also know that us adult amateurs know something others often don’t: riding time is precious currency. We squeeze it around work schedules, responsibilities, budgets, relationships, exhaustion and *gestures vaguely* life. When it all gets taken away for way longer than expected, it feels enormous.

I’m trying to treat recovery the same way we approach riding difficult horses: one ride at a time; one small win at a time.

Right now, a “good day” looks like less pain, successful attempts to wear different shirts—hubby's big long sleeve shirts have been the most comfortable--and maybe not dropping my phone while trying to scroll in bed with one hand, propped up on a pile of pillows because anything close to decent sleep with this sling has been vastly out of reach.

Progress. It comes in all shapes and sizes.

This is just Part One of who knows how many updates I’ll share more as recovery continues, including physical therapy, the mental side of being out of the saddle and eventually the return-to-riding process.

Because if there’s one thing adult amateurs are good at, it’s persistence with a slightly unhinged level of optimism. Even in a sling.

If you've ever dealt with injury, setback or an unexpected pause in your riding journey, how did you cope?

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