United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Well, hello again,

Since I barged in like that with questions about my fiancee's surgery, I thought it's be nice to give you some feedback: it happened yesterday. He's got 2 hot looking cuts (rolling eyes) and seems that the doctor (Dr. Bain, for anyone around Hamilton, Ontario) is quite happy with the results. Now we're supposed to just wait for 2 weeks till he recovers and then start physio. I see from what other people have posted that his surgery wasn't too complicated and it went smoothly. All we have to do now is hope.

Thank you, though, for replying. The information was very helpful, but most importantly, the fact that someone listened was what I needed the most.

I hope I see good news from everyone on the forum.

Cristina

I am sorry to ask but what exactly were the injuries. I am having an operation in about 4-5 weeks at Sunnybrook in Toronto. I had complete avlusion of C5-C8 and T1.

I'm sorry to reply so late, Tyson, but I've been swamped with school work.

So, the injury: he had no avulsed nerves, but he had a hairline fracture on C5 and stretched nerves at C5 and C6. Therefore initially he had lost any sensation and movement in his arm from the shoulder down. Slowly he regained sensation almost completely (with a few remaining patches that fels as if he had had a local done). Motionwise, he had good control of the tricep to start with and he regained some control of the bicep. Not so much the rotator, and nothing in th deltoid. From what I know, he had a nerve transfer, from an intercostal nerve onto the deltoid and during the surgery, a diagnostic testing revealed that his deltoid was not coming back at all so the surgery was a great idea. In terms of how hard the surgery was on him, it wasn't really. He was out of the hospital by the next morning and in some pain. Again, from what I understand reading other posts, his injury was not that grave therefore the operation had to be quite simple (in comparison). He was in somewhat pain, but not too troublesome. The doctor suggested that he wear a sling to keep his deltoid from stretching for 2 weeks. After that, it is assumed that the nerve has had time to attach itself to the muscle and physio will start. So don't be afraid. Are you in any pain now? Jim was not in any pain and if he was, I understand that the surgery would've decreased that.
I'm not sure if that's what you wanted to know or if it's helpful. Let me know if there's something I missed. It's quite hard to know a lot of medical details because he's in TO, I'm in Windsor with school and I hear about his medical visits from him, so all the medical details are filtered out. But again, feel free to email me and best of luck with the surgery!

CA