Welcome to Wellness on Mass. I'm Dr. Nicole Sapphire, and today's episode is both deeply

personal and I guess a little professionally enlightening as I'm going to take you kind of behind

the scenes of my recent shoulder surgery. That's right. I am recording this episode of the podcast

straight from my couch because I'm four days post shoulder surgery. So what happened?

Well, I had both of my shoulder rotator cuffs operated on when I was in my 20s. So that was two

decades ago. I was a gymnast all throughout school, competitive cheerleading. I had lots of injuries. I had knee

surgeries from torn ACLs. And by my 20s, again, I had both of my shoulder rotator cuffs worked on.

I was kind of a hot mess, let me tell you. But as I entered my 30s, I was feeling stronger than ever.

I was even playing soccer on an adult team.

I wasn't having any really issues. I was feeling great. It wasn't until a fateful night during

the COVID pandemic, December 2020, that I made a big mistake. I decided to walk on my staircase, a grand staircase. I think it was

13 stairs from top to bottom. I did that wearing socks, and I didn't have any runners on my stairs.

So as you can imagine, I slipped. That's right. My foot slipped out from underneath me. I married to a

brain surgeon. So the first thing that I thought of and instinctively was to protect my head and neck

because my husband had told me way too many stories about patients who fell downstairs, broke their

neck, got a brain bleed, devastating consequences.

So instinctively, I threw my arm behind my head to protect my head and neck.

And the good news is, by the time I reached the bottom, I had not hit my head or neck.

The bad news, I sacrificed my arm to protect my head.

I'm very glad I did. It could have been much worse had I hit my head or neck, but laying at the

bottom of the stairs, I knew something was wrong with my arm. My oldest son was next to me. He witnessed the fall.

He screamed for my husband. They came running to me. I stood up and I just looked at them and I said,

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