[CAUT] Lessons from shoulder surgery

[Michael Magness]

On Dec 18, 2007 1:21 PM, Jim Busby <jim_busby at byu.edu> wrote:

>  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.
>
>
>
>
>
Hi Jim,

I wish you a speedy recovery. My own story is somewhat different being among
the self-employed when I injured my right shoulder I continued to work.
I took a fall from some low scaffolding set up to complete the siding of my
garage/shop on Nov. 9 of '05. When I got up, angry and upset over the time
wasted, I reassembled the "scaffold" a 2X12 plank between two ladders to
reach the top of my 9' sidewall and put on the last of the siding. I
couldn't raise my right arm above my shoulder, so I reached across with my
left hand and lifted it into place and finished the job. I went in the house
and called my wife, a nurse, to ask if I should go to the walk-in clinic she
answered with an emphatic yes!
The doc there thought I just had a muscle tear and gave me a prescription
for an anti-inflammatory with the caveat if I wasn't better in a few weeks
to see my regular doc. I had a standing appointment to see him 3 weeks later
and I wasn't feeling a lot better, he examined me and felt I had a rotator
cuff tear and sent me to Physical Therapy. I went to physical therapy for 6
weeks until the therapist felt I wasn't improving and sent me back to the
doc. She(long story)then ordered an MRI So finally on Feb. 1st it was
established I had a full rotator cuff tear and bicep tear.
All during this time I had continued my usual tuning schedule including the
extra tunings at Christmas. I saw a surgeon at the local clinic who didn't
inspire confidence, I had googled full rotator cuff tear and seemed to know
about more cutting edge surgeries than he did! I went back to my Doc and
asked for a consult to Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN is only about an hour's
drive from me and the clinic I go to is a part of the Mayo health system.
I had the great fortune to get an appointment 10 days later with a shoulder
specialist who looked carefully at the DVD of my MRI gave me a thorough exam
and told me I had rehabbed myself! He said he could operate but he felt the
outcome wouldn't be a lot better than what I had then/now that many of my
other muscles had come into play and compensated for the loss of the rotator
cuff. He felt that the tuning was what had saved my shoulder and that I
had/have a long career ahead of me without the need of surgery.
I returned to therapy for a while to make sure I had the shoulder as fit as
it could be. The therapist kept marveling saying I don't know how you do
what you do. I told I was like the bumblebee she didn't understand so I
explained that aerodynamically bumblebee's can't fly. Their body weight is
too heavy for their wings and scientifically speaking they shouldn't be able
to fly but nobody told them they couldn't so they continue flying. When this
first happened, I was mis-diagnosed so I kept working, then it was corrected
but not acuratly so I still kept working and 3 months later when it was
definetively diagnosed I had already worked through it.

By the way Jim I'm with you on the pain/anti-inflammatory drugs I stopped
mine early on and only took ibuprofen on and off mostly off. Pain only hurts
for a little while! <grin>


Mike

P.S. I was 56 when this happened and of course 58 today
-- 
People who say it can't be done, should not interrupt those of us who are
doing it.
Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com
email mike at ifixpianos.com
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