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Originally Posted by Tony H
My wife had both knees done at the same time. She walked out the next day. They won't discharge from the hospital until you can climb a small set of stairs. She did pretty well with it. She just got home yesterday from having a total shoulder replacement and she is very uncomfortable.
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Whoa, she sounds like one tough lady. I had rotator cuff surgery in 2016. I thought I had a mild muscle pull in my shoulder and it pissed me off. I had to do something heavy one day and oh my God the pulling and tearing that I felt inside, I never want to experience that again. I am really conscious now of pain that seems like tendon pain. It’s not the same thing as muscle pain.
I was very lucky, I somehow managed to get a spot on the dance card of Dr. Kenneth Akizuki, the team physician for the San Francisco Giants. I liked him the minute I saw him, just a great vibe, really strong and confident guy. He showed me something in the MRI and said if we don’t fix that within the next 30 days a couple of years from now I’d be dreaming about a full shoulder replacement. At the time my reading had it that it was the riskiest of the joint replacements in terms of failure.
I was researching the issue and ran across some web articles by an old friend/physician, Dr. Frederick Matsen III. Speaking of B-ball, in ‘77 while playing in a pick-up game at the University of Washington rec center I broke my left fib and tib, snapped like dry branches. Made a hell of a noise, I think I did it with my own muscles or rather the momentum that my muscles provided. I was running full speed up court and planted and went up hard for a rebound. I heard the snapping noise while in the air. Somehow I knew something was up, I landed on my right leg, tumbled down to my butt, reached down and lifted my leg up just below the knee. I had a new joint midway down my shin. Shocking stuff, no question what had happened, I was just lucky the bones didn’t pierce the flesh.
Turns out I was really fortunate that this happened maybe a mile from the UW Hospital where Dr. Matsen was one of the heads of the orthopedic department. He said that with sensors they could measure the pressure in my leg and that it presented a statistical likelihood of 20% of either losing the foot or the death of a muscle or two which would result in permanent limp.
It’s called compartment syndrome, fascia encloses various muscle groups and is less flexible than the muscles themselves. It’s why throughout millennia bad leg breaks often result in amputation. The swelling cuts off circulation and gangrene sets in. Years later I read about a promising lady basketball player with a similar break who lost her foot because they hadn’t caught compartment syndrome in time.
He was needing a subject for a training video and I agreed to it. A year later on a special occasion (long story) he let me see the video. Just a great guy. Around ‘97 I drove cab in San Francisco briefly. Once I had some orthopedic surgeons in the cab who were in town for a convention, I told them my story and they said he was a world expert on compartment syndrome.
I go on with this long story because turns out he moved up to shoulder surgery and is still doing full shoulder replacement. Not sure, but I would guess he is at least 80 to 85, his website says he does 200 operations a year.
Long story short, highly recommended.
*ETA* I discovered he’s 78 years old.