Worried about surgery--can anyone shed some light??????

[Wes]

I am a 33 year old man who had a traumatic injury on June 6, 2004. While I was cutting a tree down the tree fell on me, causing skull fractures, multiple facial fractures, broken T5 & T6(surgery was done to fuse vertebrae), broken C1, broken scapula and clavicle, brachial plexus injury to the right arm, rib fractures, and a torn MCL. All seems to be healing well except for the right arm hardly moving with this brachial plexus injury.

As of today, my fingers do move when making a fist. But it is difficult to extend them. I do not have any bicep/tricep movement and the elbow does not move. I am able to shrug my shoulder and pull shoulder blades back.

I have had an EMG that showed lower trunk being weak and upper trunk weak to almost no response. I go to my neurosurgeon at the end of October, that is when she will be scheduling me for surgery. This sounds like it will be a nerve graf from the leg.

Is there anyone out there that has had similiar injuries that can help me with some details of surgery and after affects of it. What type of success or percentage of movement have you gotten back.

I thank everyone for listening and hopefully someone out there can enlighten me on this situation.

Thank you,
Wes

[Karl w/ a K]

Wes,
Check out this case study done on 62 patients who all had surgeries for TBPI
...http://ots.utoronto.ca/users/howardg/pn1.pdf
Here is a snother study you might be interested in
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 650365c8d4

Don't know why the url is so long, but it's definently worth checking out. I'm not sure what surgery you will have, but it might give you some sense of what to expect. Hope it helps....Karl....

[jacko]

Jeez man.... how big woz the tree ????!!!

[admin]

The tree was about 75 feet tall and 12 inches in diameter maple tree!!!! it was big enough to put me in the hospital for thirty days and do all injuries that i had and the right arm brachial plexus injury that has me worried. Do you have any information on surgery and the percentage of movement of arm after surgery. thanks for the reply !!!

[jennyb]

Hi Wes
Check on the Roll Call post, there are 2 others injured by trees on there. Whereabouts are you?

It's not surprising you're worried about surgery but don't worry, if the doctor gets in there and finds things are just stretched she'll probably just clear off scar tissue and leave it to do its own thing. If she finds the nerves are torn or severed, she can do a graft or transfer as you've already said. These surgeries are very commonplace now and if the damage is mainly to the upper part of your plexus, which seems to be the case, you have a good chance of recovery as the nerves have a lot less distance to travel to reinnervate the upper arm. It's great that your surgery is being done relatively soon after injury, too, that will help your chances.
Let us know how it goes and I wish you the best of luck.
Cheers
Jen NZ

[Wes]

Jennyb,
Thank you so much for replying. I am very new to this message board, I was wondering if you can tell me how I can get into the Roll Call post that you spoke of. I live in PA.
It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge on this sort of injury, did you go through one yourself? If you did, how did it turn out?

Thanks again!!!!!

[Wes]

Karl,
Thank you for the website, the information there did put my mind at ease. It is quite interesting how 62 people can be studied and so much can be understood about TBPI by just studying those people.

Thanks again.

[admin]

Hi Wes! Sorry to hear about your accident! Man, what you must be going through! My son is 12 yeras old and is TBPI right arm. He had nerve grafting done. Hope you get some help soon!

[jennyb]

Hi Wes
I've had a right arm tbpi since Jan 1980, over half a life ago. I have had little recovery but my life has gone on and I have adapted so thoroughly I don't even think of myself as being any different than anyone else. I still get pain sometimes but the arm is now part of who I am, as is the pain. I like who I am so I can live with it. It would be nice to put BOTH arms around my husband or kids sometimes-and VERY nice to have an extra arm to hold my 5 yr old when I'm brushing knots out of her hair, but apart from that life is good :0)
When I found this site a few years ago I was amazed to find others like me. At that time there was not much info for tbpi 'out there' so some of us started putting together a website specifically for tbpi. It's at www.tbpi-group.org and is still a work in progress, but there is some good tbpi specific info there. It's mainly been written by Brits and also has a lively message board. I have since emigrated to New Zealand but maintained the links with the uk group and as a group we work together with UBPN as much as we can to help the bpi population worldwide.

[jennyb]

oops link didn't work try this http://tbpi-group.org/
and the message board is here http://pub28.ezboard.com/badultswithbra ... usinjuries