[CAUT] Lessons from shoulder surgery

[Porritt, David]

Jim:

 

I hope your recovery continues to go well and that your ambidextrous
approach to our work will prevent a repeat in the future.  I wish I had
done the left hand bit, but I think at my age that's not going to
happen.  Can you do a left-handed tuning for a concert that wouldn't
worry you?

 

Have a great Christmas.

 

dp

 

David M. Porritt, RPT

dporritt at smu.edu

 

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Jim Busby
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 1:22 PM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: [CAUT] Lessons from shoulder surgery

 

All,

 

Last Tuesday (Dec. 11) I went in for shoulder surgery and came back
today with some things I'd like to share. In the surgery the doctors
removed calcium buildups (I DON'T know all their fancy names!), some
arthritis, bone spurs, and shortened/smoothed the bone around the ball
joint (hey, that's what it looked like to me). Anyway, the excess bone
was digging into the rotator cuff (sp?) and soon would have required
replacement and/or other major work. "It was tearing through like a
knife". All I know is that it hurt to tune.

 

After one week, I'm a bit sore but back to work! If I had waited another
3 or 4 months they told me it would have been MUCH worse! What I want to
share to you;

 

1.	Don't put it off! It may get way worse.
2.	Find a great surgeon who won't just give you cortisone shots
month after month. (This guy does the BYU athletes and my doctor friends
and nurses say he's the best.)
3.	Surgery really wasn't that bad, although the first 3 days after
I wanted to die... 
4.	Learn to tune left handed. Today I tuned a piano left handed (no
problem because I've learned to) and pounding the key with my right hand
was no problem. It's impossible for me to tune right handed for another
3 or 4 weeks. (Hurts like hell to even raise it!)

 

You can read all these articles on how to "avoid" such surgeries but in
my studies I found that;

 

1.             Part of this comes with age/work and is somewhat
inevitable for certain people

2.             Part of it is in the genes. Bone spurs, arthritis, is in
my family...

3.             Exercises, techniques, etc. can help, but sometimes
20,000 piano tunings and age win out.

 

Prognosis? 10 to 20 years of pain free tuning! Well, after another few
weeks of torture...

 

I also learned I'm one tough buck. They gave me pain pills but I'd
rather take the pain than put that crap in my body. It always makes me
feels much worse in the long run, and I can't make the hour long drive
to work with that in my system. They were amazed that I didn't take
anything and that my recovery was so fast. 

 

Jim Busby BYU

 

p.s. I'm 52 years old.

 

 

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