RE: SHOULDER FUSION?.................. HELP...............ANYONEQ LISA

[Guest guest]

A couple of things.

I don't talk to my guy cuz he is retired and maybe dead now!

I am sure that the other injuries were simply a fact of EDS and the fact

that they would have happened anyway coupled with the fact that the shoulder

was tight in all the wrong places.

It happened with my wrist, fingers, elbow and shoulder suffered.

It happened with my ankle, all the other tendons tore all in one whack while

walking down some stairs.

At the time I blamed the fusion but I was pretty young and also I didn't

know anything about EDS. Had I known I would have just assumed the other

stuff was normal.

I would NOT go into this surgery for several months.

Give your self at least 10 months if you can after this last injury.

You would be surprised what might happen.

I was happy with my fusion but there was junk in my shoulder to work with.

Try to see if the pain lessens in at least an interval of 8 months past the

conference time.

The reason I say this is because this surgery was really REALLY painful and

the rehab was something I think only a 30 year old could do. You may be

tougher than me right now but I know for sure I could not endure such a post

op and rehab period at this moment in my life.

This is not at all like the other surgeries you have had.

I know you have had shoulder surgery but you will most likely be harnessed

with your arm totally mashed to your chest for a VERY long time. You simply

cannot use it and with no other structures there to help with the healing .

wow.

What I am trying to say is that I am very glad that I had the surgery when I

did but would give myself a good year of thinking about it before I did it

today.

You know I am not a sissy too.

I have had easily over 40 surgeries (total, about 25 ortho) and so it is not

about that. It is about a very very hard, painful and structured absence of

stuff you normally do every day.

Hope this helps.

Debbi

Re: SHOULDER FUSION?..................

HELP...............ANYONEQ DEB

In a message dated 8/18/2004 1:02:35 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

jetskideb@... writes:

~~

I am pretty sure that I told you I had fusion/reconstructions of my shoulder

over 13 years ago.

I had remembered your wrist, but I guess I forgot @ your shoulder. But

maybe

if I knew you worked out like that in the gym & then raced after the fusion,

the RN in me, WANTED TO FORGET IT! LOL!

The fusion held so well that I had to have several more reconstructions due

to other tears in other parts of the shoulder. (that is one of the issues

with

fusion of any kind)

So, it's your understanding & experience, that it was due to the fusion,

that

you developed tears elsewhere in the same shoulder? Or do you think maybe

those tears were because you were stressing it so much by trying to ski

afterwards & perhaps ovedoing it & using other parts of your shoulder to

conpensate

for the fused area?

It has really loosened up after all this time but there is no pain so I am

not going to do anything about the over rotation issues. The procedure was

called " pants over vest " if that is any help to you. My surgeon is retired

but

I think I have my op report.

I'd do it in a heartbeat, if it ended the pain. That's really the main

reason I'm thinking that it's my only way to go. There's really nothing

left to

work with, in there, after so many operations, due to tears, separations,

etc.

And since the fall in Buffalo, it's a million times worse. I was hoping it

would calm down, but it hasn't & if anything, it hurts worse, even down my

arm

now.

You see atcully, now that I've really had time to think about all of this,

the whole thing is really. MY FALL IN BUFFALO WAS, ALL YOUR FAULT, Deb. If

you

hadn't had your bleeding ulcer, you would have been able to come to the

conference & you would have been in the room with me, that AM And, when I

went into

the shower, I'm sure you would have been up at @ 6:30 AM when I went into

the

shower & you would have been standing right outside the tub, just in case I

fell & you would have been right there. to catch me, so I wouldn't have

fallen.. I mean, I certainly would have been there for you when you were

showering at

6:30 AM!!! (Yeah, right!, LOL,LOL)....... You know, in case you needed me to

hand you a towel or anything....... OR, you know, maybe now that I think

about it, perhaps I hit my head too & I'm a bit delusional now!

The real problem I had in the beginning, post op, was that I was a semi-pro

jetski racer and had to do a great deal of body building to keep my

edge.Being

tiny and racing against men WAS my edge but my upper body strength suffered

after the surgery.

Remind me never to wrestle you, you may still be a lot stronger then me.

LOL, could you picture that??? US wrestling! Now, that would be funny!

I was a punk then And what is it that you think has changed?? (Gosh, I'm

really on a roll tonight.... good thing there's 3,000 miles between us!)

and was p-0ed at just about anything that stood in my way of skiing so I was

back in the gym in 7 days after the fusion. I was unable to use that

shoulder/arm/hand but I was in the gym anyway!

When I showed my surgeon a tape of one of my competitions (after my surgery)

he said that I SHOULD NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN (did not know about EDS at

the

time of course).

Ummm gosh, I wonder why, you ding dong! Again, I repeat, I wonder why????

He must have had a stroke! Actually, that might be fun to watch!

Well, I did ski again competitively but only for a while as I lost my edge

and my nerve mostly because I was scared to death I would rip it apart.

Ummmm, I wonder why..... that little birdie inside you told you, you just

weren't listening to Bobbi Grey, then!

However as time went by it became very evident that my shoulder blade stuck

out sort of weird and I could not rotate like I needed to continue the

exercising so my body did not stay strong enough to ski in competition.

I'm soooo surprised! NOT.

As I " grew up "

So, when is it that you think you're gonna grow up?? I'm sorry, I missed

that part....

I saw that skiing was NOT the whole world and am very happy that the surgery

was done.

Sounds like it did the trick.... No pain? Where do I sign up?

Since it was such a long time ago and that shoulder was " fresh " (no prior

surgeries) I am sure what would be done these days is totally different than

what

was done to me then. Besides it was considered experimental then, like my

ankle and wrist fusions as well.

I'm sure, not just the years, but I've had at least 5-7 operations on that

shoulder & it;s like shmashed old ripened bannanas... yucky. There's

nothing

left, I've seen it on the TV screen, plus I have intraoperative pics.

Let me know if I can do anything to help-

Shoot me? Or, actually, seriously.... Can you imagine this? I'm going to

be

serious...

SERIOUS...... ( you may want to document this, this is , being serious.)

I guess you can tell I really hurt & I'm scared... It takes a lot to get me

to this point..... and I don't often admit it.

The next time you talk to your guy, or if you can, could you ask if he knows

anyone in the NYC, Northern NJ area (Hackensack) is usally good. It's not

near me, but a lot of guys that don't live in the city, but work in the city

&

live in Northern NJ,, also tend to use Hackensack when they don't feel like

dragging themselves into the city. It's kind of like the city, without

paying the

toll, if that makes any sense....

But ask them if they can think of anyone or a few someones that they would

suggest that I let have a look at this.... Thanks love....