I saw my Orthopedist, Dr. John Fenlin, on Tuesday (August 30) with the idea that we were to discuss surgery since I just finished 5 weeks of physical therapy (hereafter = PT) only to be told that he's concerned about possible nerve damage in the shoulder and he wants to be absolutely sure of all possible conditions before he goes in, so he wanted me to have an Electromyography (hereafter = EMG) test, I was lucky enough to get one scheduled (downtown, ugh) today, September 1, and since I was able to get the results today as well I was able to get an appointment to see Dr. Fenlin again next Wednesday (September 7), though that may not be necessary (see below).
So once again the Third Option rears its ugly head (why am I not surprised?). I go in expecting to hear one thing and hear something completely unexpected that slows progess to a crawl.
I had the EMG test done downtown today, we got lucky with traffic and made it in about 35 minutes, getting me to the office about 50 before my scheduled 8:00am appointment, luckily they took me in at 7:50am.
The tests took about 90 minutes in total, from getting my medical history to testing my range of motion and then hitting me with a hammer to sticking me with needles and shocking the nerves to test the responses to see if there is any damage. Overall the doctor (Dr. G.J. Herbison) seemed pleased that there appears to be no severe damage and that after 3 months (I fell 90 days ago today) I appear to have healed quite nicely, though there's still a good amount of healing to do.
So the good news is : I'm healing ok (nerves, not muscles since they're still torn) but the bad (and possibly horrible) news is : I could have surgery now but the nerve still needs to heal which means I won't have motion in the arm until that happens, so a surgery now will still result in waiting for the nerve to heal, so it's more likely the doc will want to wait until the nerve heals in more completely and then do the surgery so I'll have motion immediately afterwards, though I'll still need PT either way. The horrible part of that news is that it could be SIX months until that nerve heals in completely!
So I could be looking at surgery no sooner than March 2006!!!
This does NOT make me happy, especially since the extreme pain will not go away in the next 6 months, and the last 3 months were hell, this would be devastating news if that's what the doc wants to do - I won't really know until I talk to him (he did not do this test). I have an appointment to see him next Wednesday, September 7, so I may know more then. I am going to see if I can get his opinion on the results of the EMG test over the phone since it would be better/easier/cheaper than driving all the way back downtown just to be told face to face what I could be told over the phone. It would save 3-4 hours of travel/waiting, $15 co-pay, $9 parking if this is something that can just be told to me.
Either way, if he does decide to go ahead with the surgery now (which I doubt since he'd want full recovery right away, it'd keep his "Best" label accurate since it avoids the possibility of me telling others "it didn't work right away") then it could still be months until I'm anywhere near "normal", but if it ends this pain then I'd be willing to do it this way, otherwise he may want to wait the 6 months to ensure full immediate recovery (which gives me another half a year of Hell).
I'll keep you posted.
RobMac
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