United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Anyone out there Canadian eh? Any tips on getting referrals out of province? I'm from Manitoba and it appears Ontario has 2 bpi clinics, one in Toronto and the other in London. Any info on these? The Mayo and Johns Hopkins are also inviting me to "come on down" but the price tag is pretty steep.

Hi my name is Andrew Iam form Northern BC, Canada. In December 2001 I also had a snowmobile accident which left me with a complete BPI. C8/T1 avulsed from the spinal cord, C5/6/7 completely severed. I have a completely flacid Rt.arm and hand. In February 2002, I had surgery in Calagary by a Dr. Joughin and Dr. Harrop (Unfortunatly, Dr Joughin has moved to Australia). The surgery performed took donar nerves from both my legs (sural nerves) and these nerves were used to graft from nerve roots (C5/6/7) these were not avulsed, just severed ,the grafts were connected to the supraspinatus muscle (stops the shoulder from sub-luxing). The second nerve graft was inserted into the deltoid muscle and the third graft to the biceps muscle. It is one year since I had the surgery and I have gaiined about 20% movement in the biceps,and is expected to improve greatly. The deltoid does not look as though it has taken, the supraspinatus has also regained some function, My surgery took 16 hours and the Canadian Health Care funded the total amout, even though the surgery was performed in another province.Fortunatly, my father is a Physiotherapist and knows a lot about this type of injury due to my situation, If you would like to talk to him about any referrals for surgery/explanation of medical reports etc , post back on this message board with your email/tel number if you feel comfortable with that. we will send you our email/tel number so we can get some info to you. It would be great if I could just be in contact with some else who has a similar injury to me.