<div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 18, 2007 1:21 PM, Jim Busby <<a href="mailto:jim_busby@byu.edu">jim_busby@byu.edu</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> <div lang="EN-US" vlink="purple" link="blue"> <div> 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;   <ol style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in" type="1"> <li>Don't put it off! It may get way worse.</li> <li>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.) </li> <li>Surgery really wasn't that bad, although the first 3 days after I wanted to die... </li> <li>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!) </li></ol>   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.    </div></div></blockquote></div> <div>Hi Jim,</div> <div> </div> <div>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. </div> <div>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! </div> <div>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. </div> <div>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. </div> <div>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. </div> <div>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. </div> <div> </div> <div>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></div> <div>  </div> <div>Mike</div> <div> </div> <div>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 <a href="http://www.IFixPianos.com">www.IFixPianos.com</a> email <a href="mailto:mike@ifixpianos.com">mike@ifixpianos.com</a> </div>