Two Arms, Two Choices: If Only I’d Known Then What I Know Now

By Kerry O’Connell    Disabled by faulty arm surgery and harmed by a hospital-acquired infection, a patient wishes he’d been better informed. 
I sat in an orthopedic surgeon’s office in Golden, Colorado, in 2004 as we discussed my left elbow. Just two days earlier, I’d fallen off a ladder in my driveway and dislocated the elbow. I’d also fractured the radius bone in my forearm nearest the elbow.
Repairing the elbow and the radius bone now would be complicated, the surgeon told me. He offered me a choice.
Option one was to forgo surgery. If I went that route, I’d have a very loose elbow, would be unable to fully straighten my arm, and would probably develop early arthritis.
Option two was surgery. The surgeon explained that he would try to screw the fractured pieces of my radius bone back together. But it might not be possible. In that case, he’d saw an inch off the end of the radius bone and install a cup-shaped piece of titanium in its place.  Read more