I broke my scapula during the bike leg of Ironman Texas in April. I was NOT drafting, and am not the guy in the video being floated around :-). Someone lost control behind me as they were passing and came into me. I ended up falling onto their front fork and aero bars. I broke 8 ribs, broke my scapula and ended up with a punctured and collapsed lung. Got a nice chest tube installed for 4 days. Didn’t require surgery for the scapula, as it was clean break and it is displaced by about .75 inch. But no need to fix it says the doctor.
The trauma doctor in Texas told me complete recovery will be 6-12 months. However, he also said I should start doing light exercise and PT as soon as pain management allows. He said after week 4 I should let pain be my guide for everything. It’s been 8 weeks now and I am about 90% pain free. I’ve had a huge breakthrough in pain relief over the last 2 weeks, and no longer have to sleep in a chair. The range of motion in my affected arm is pretty good now.
I was able to ride my trainer for 20-30 minutes at about 4 weeks out, and have been slowly increasing that time. I also started walking with my wife in the first week. In week 3 I would run for 5-10 seconds about 2 minutes apart. It was incredibly painful at first, but got better and I increased the run intervals every couple of days. This morning (8 weeks out), I was able to ride my trainer for 1 hour and run 1.5 miles without walking. Obviously, the ride and run were slow. The doctor keeps telling me if I am smart with the pain, then it’s good for me. I really feel like the exercise is helping with my recovery. I’m starting to doubt it will take 6-12 months to get back, as I actually feel pretty good now, all things considered.
For reference, I’m 40 years old and about 6’2" and 180 lbs. I’m sure I would recover faster if I was younger 