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July 8, 2025 15 mins

In this episode of Wellness Unmasked, Dr. Nicole Saphier shares her personal journey through shoulder surgery, detailing the events leading up to her surgery, the recovery process, and the mental challenges that accompany such a significant health event. She also reflects on the recent floods in Texas, emphasizing the importance of community support and resilience in the face of adversity.  Wellness Unmasked is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Wellness on MASS. I'm doctor Nicole Sapphire and
today's episode is both deeply personal and I guess a
little professionally enlightening is 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

(00:23):
what happened. Well, I had both of my shoulder rotator
cuffs operated on when I was in my twenties, 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 twenties,

(00:43):
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 thirties, 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

(01:05):
December twenty twenty that I made a big mistake. I
decided to walk on my staircase, a grand staircase. I
think it was thirteen 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.

(01:26):
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

(01:50):
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

(02:11):
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, I am okay, I
do not need to go to the hospital right now.
I just need to go into my bedroom. I need

(02:32):
some alone time. I'm skipping dinner tonight, but I'm okay.
I didn't hit my head. I don't have any signs
of internal bleeding or anything of the sort. I knew
something was wrong with my arm, but it wasn't something
we needed to call nine one one four, so I
decided to go and spend some alone time. At four am,
I woke up my type A personality decided to rage

(02:55):
purchase grip socks for my entire family, and I did that.
By five AM. I called my primary care doctor, saying
I have a non functioning arm. I need to get
to surgery. But again, doctors are the worst patients, so
of course I'm not going to go to the hospital.
I just needed to make some phone calls. Long story short,

(03:18):
I essentially tore everything you could possibly tear in one's shoulder.
The first surgery repaired my biceps and repaired my labrum.
It also helped kind of put together some of the joint.
I was then in a sling for six to eight
weeks afterwards. Day one, in physical therapy, it was obvious

(03:40):
my shoulder was still very unstable, so I had to
go right back into another surgery. This time they repaired
some of my pectoralis, my capsule, some of my rotator cuff,
and then I was again in a sling for another
six to eight weeks. When I came out of that,
I had to get some injections into the joint because

(04:02):
of just severe pain. We could tell that my shoulder
wasn't back to normal. But then again, I mean, do
things ever really go back to normal after such a
severe injury. I had realistic expectations that maybe it would
never be one hundred percent normal again. There were times
when I would stick out my arm and I could

(04:23):
just tell it is just not as stable as I
want it to be. But I was able to drive,
I was able to cook at home. I was able
to do my job. Part of my job as in
breast and interventional radiologist is I do a lot of
biopsies on patients, whether it's biop saying the thyroid, limp nodes,
the breast. I was able to do my job, and

(04:46):
for me, I was happy. I had just spent far
too much of twenty twenty one in a sling, and
I was very happy to be out of the slink.
So even though the conversation between the surge and I
was we may need another surgery, I was holding off.
A few months later, it was starting to get bad again,

(05:07):
but again I was not ready to go to surgery.
I got a second opinion, a second opinion. Doctor said, listen,
you do need another surgery, but as long as you
keep your arm strong, you keep rehabbing it, you can
probably hold off for a while. Well, I held off
for a while. Three years later, here we are, twenty
twenty five. I was doing great until the last few months.

(05:31):
I've been feeling some more pain when I'm doing biapses
at work. I just I can feel it kind of
getting weaker and weaker. Despite me working out and doing
everything I can to keep my body as strong and
healthy as possible, the shoulder was starting to fail me again.
So here we are July twenty twenty five, nearly five

(05:52):
years from that fall, and it was time to do
one more surgery. And I'm glad I did because I
can tell you I am now four days out from
the surgery, and so far I am feeling better than
I have since the fall. I came out of Antesesia,
I didn't feel nearly as sick. It's hard being down
an arm, being back in that sling again, especially in

(06:15):
the summer when all you want to be is outside.
You don't want to be weighed down by this sling
and bandages and stitches and all these things. But I
can tell you I'm feeling optimistic because I'm being proactive.
I didn't just grind my shoulder down until it really
failed and would have been even more difficult to repair.

(06:35):
But here I am. I'm at the beginning of this
recovery journey. I'm going to spend the summer rehabbing it,
getting stronger, so as we enter Fall twenty twenty five,
the new school year, I'll be stronger than ever, stronger
for myself, stronger for my kids, stronger for my patients.
So eyes forward. You know, sometimes it can be challenging

(06:56):
going through these surgeries mentally. We obviously know that there
are physical challenges there. Not being able to drive sounds silly,
but even do laundry, put your hair in a ponytail,
wash your own hair. It can really affect you mentally
because you become so dependent on others around you. And

(07:18):
I pride myself on being a strong, independent person. Then
all of a sudden, I can't even get my hair
in a ponytail. That can be challenging, but I'm very
grateful that I have friends and family who surround me
have offered themselves to help. I have a whole cadre
of friends who are sending food knowing that I'm unable

(07:38):
to cook this week, and my husband is on call
so he may or may not be able to be
home in the evenings. I have family that are constantly
checking in with me. My kids are picking up and
doing their own laundry. I mean, God bless America. If
this is what it takes for people to chip in
around here at the house, you know, it's a sacrifice
I was willing to make. So the procedure is self

(08:00):
what I had done. When they went in, there was
a ton of scar tissue all around the nerves, so
they had to do this intricate dissection of all of
the nerves surrounding that kind of supply my entire arm.
I'm having a lot of nerve sensations in my arm.

(08:20):
I believe this is all normal postop, and it'll take
some time because they really did a lot of work
on my arm. Those nerves, but I can tell you
it's not a good feeling. It's this constant feeling of
like my arm still being asleep. So stay tuned on
that because I'm hoping that gets better. That's the only
thing that's really bothering me right now. I can deal

(08:43):
with the ache of the shoulder, but it's that nerve
stuff that are bothering me a bit. For me, I'm
going to do everything I can to try and decrease
my inflammation as much as possible because my nerves are
absolutely inflamed. I will be taking like oral anti inflammatories
like an ibuprofen. But if you know me, you know
I am all about the natural ways to decrease inflammation.

(09:05):
It's why I create a drop our x my liquid herbs.
I actually have a blend. It's called Soothe. It's full
of turmeric and ginger and it is a natural way
to decrease inflammation in the body. We are cultivating the
garden as much as possible, getting all the natural herbs here.
I'm taking my drop our X sooth, I'm taking my

(09:26):
oral anti inflammatories. I'm icing, I'm resting, which for me
is very difficult to do. But I'm doing everything possible
to give my body the best chance of getting back
to good. I am going to start physical therapy this week,
which sounds crazy. I'm not even a week out of
the OAR, but they want to start moving my arm

(09:48):
and I am dreading that because physical therapy is so
painful when you are newly posted up. Anybody who's done it,
they can attest to it. I'm sure I will be
cranky coming out of physical therapy, but again, these are
all the things you have to do to get yourself
as strong as possible. So I'm going to be doing it,
and I'm just going to make sure that I continue
to reach out to my friends and family and ask

(10:09):
for help. Very difficult for someone like me to do,
but you have to. We are humans. We are not
meant to do this alone. We are social animals, so
I am not too proud to ask for help, and
so I'm going to you're listening to Wellness on Mass.
We'll be right back with more. Before we conclude this

(10:32):
episode of Wellness on Mass, I have to comment on
what is going on in Texas. You know, I'm not
really watching a lot of TV or even the news
much right now. I did get called to comment on
Fox and Friends this weekend because of the devastation that
these Texas floods are causing in central Texas. My friend,

(10:54):
actually one of my closest friends from medical school, is
a physician in San Angelo, Texas, where this flooding is
all occurring, and I was able to talk to her.
She said, these surrounding neighborhoods are destroyed, but thankfully the
hospital itself is structurally intact. They are taking in a
whole bunch of patients because if you think about it,

(11:16):
we always worry about the direct damage from the floods
to the structures, so washing away homes, destroying all of
our belongings, and the immediate danger of being swept away
by the water and drowning, But there are so many
indirect ways that this flooding can cause damage. And what
they're seeing in the hospital is patients who are not

(11:38):
able to get their medical care out patient, or they're
not able to use their oxygen at home, or they
were in home hospice. So all these patients are now
needing to be cared for in the hospital because there's
nowhere else for them to go. People have also been
up to their chest in this floodwater, so it's exacerbating
their asthma, their copd, their heart disease. And on top

(12:01):
of that, there's at risk of infections, whether it's pneumonia,
this water. This water is like a toxic soup. It
is full of sewage, bacteria, debris. There's so many bad
things in this water. And not to mention in the water.
The debris can actually cause you to cut your skin

(12:21):
and you can get skin infections. If you ingest it,
you can get a GI track infection. I mean, it
is just it is a disaster. And at this point
you have at least eighty two have died, dozens are
still missing. It is a complete devastation. I hate what
I'm seeing online that people are pointing fingers as though

(12:41):
this is some politician's fault and this is just not
seclell of a natural disaster. Did you even see what happened?
There is a pediatrician who from Texas. They had some
vile posts on social media. They essentially said any MAGA
does I mean, I'm gonna misquote this. She said something

(13:04):
along the lines of, let's see may all visitors, children
and non MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry
Kerr County MAGA voted to cut FEMA, they denied climate change.
May they get what they voted for? Bless their hearts.
This doctor, Christina Prost, this is of course a now

(13:26):
deleted social media post, but it went viral. She's a
pediatrician in Houston, and she felt the need while children
were dying, while people were swept away and missing and
lost their entire livelihoods, she decided to make this political.
And you know, we saw this a bit during COVID.
We saw people, specifically doctors who are supposed to be altruistic.

(13:49):
We're supposed to have taken oaths for saying do no harm.
But yet, just like we saw during COVID, you saw
pediatrician office saying we're not going to see you if
unless you are. They essentially outcasted anybody who didn't have
the same mindset as them. The fact that this woman
put this post up it is disgusting. She has lost

(14:11):
her job, according to reports online. And all I can
say is, you know, shame on her. People need to
come together, people need to help others. Not everything should
be political. And as I continue to heal both physically
and mentally from my shoulder, surgery. I'm just reminded how
resilience is built not just in the body, but in
the mind and spirit. Recovery is rarely linear. It can

(14:34):
be uncomfortable, it's absolutely inconvenient, and it is most certainly humbling.
But it's also an opportunity to reconnect with ourself and
reconnect with those around us. And while I am focused
on my own healing right now, I just can't stop
thinking about the countless Texans facing a far greater battle.

(14:56):
It's hard to feel sorry for myself when I look
online to see what these people pople are dealing with.
The devastating floods have upended lives, destroyed homes, and placed
a serious burden on public health, and I can't believe
people are politicizing it. I'm absolutely disgusted by it. Until
next time, Thank you so much for joining me on
Wellness on Mass, I'm doctor Nicole Sapphire. Thanks for listening

(15:19):
to Wellness on Mass on America's number one podcast network.
I Heart Follow Wellness on Mass with doctor Nicole Safhire
and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts, and we will catch you next time.

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