Surgery

Dr. Kremchek (Cincinnati, OH) and his staff were unbelievably professional. It actually may have been the only time in my life that I had not complained about a long car ride (five hours or so). My visit was set up not even a week after my initial phone call. I arrived in Cincinnati on Friday August 29, prepped for the surgery, and went under the knife the very next morning. Dr. K. informed my mom and I the surgery would take no more than an hour and a half. It only took an hour before I was back in the room with a brand new ligament.

The craziest part of it all was that I had no idea that it was the Tommy John procedure that was done until I woke up from the anesthetics. I had a partial tear, but the MRI did not reveal how severe it was. The day before the operation, I was told there were two possible solutions- the UCL reconstruction or a Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injection, which is relatively new to medicine. The PRP injection would require around half of the recovery time as the reconstruction as it helps to naturally repair the ligament damage. I'm sure the way it was explained was a highly simplified version, but Dr. K. said if fluid was present in the elbow, he would go ahead with the Tommy John procedure. If not, he would do the PRP injection.  Unfortunately,  there was a significant amount of fluid.

If there were any positives that came out of it, the fact that I had a partial (and not complete) tear was one. The palmaris longus muscle was removed from my left forearm as a replacement ligament to be inserted into the elbow. I was informed by the doctor that partial tears that have been repaired and rehabbed tend to be stronger than those with full tears. Reason being, the partially torn ligament is not removed, so the "new" ligament (in this case, the palmaris longus muscle) is inserted to fuse with the original ligament.

Sunday morning, around 24 hours post-op, I received my first therapy treatment with Dr. Kremchek's staff. It was agonizingly simple, consisting of hand squeezes, finger touches, and wrist movement. Iodine still coated my elbow from the operation and Sharpie marks were everywhere. The bandages were replaced and wrapped before my arm was set in a full-arm brace that was locked at 90 degrees. With nothing to further complete, I was soon on my way home with little feeling in my elbow (mostly due to the heavy medication) and a repaired UCL. The twelve month journey had begun.