I had my consultation with the surgeon today and without surgery I have a zero chance of being as strong with my left arm as I was prior to the injury. With surgery I have the POTENTIAL to be able to be. For me it's a no brainier. Everyone has expectations for themselves and everyone has a lifestyle which will provide them with contentment. Being "normal" isn't enough for me. Being able to put my shirt on pain free, being able to carry the groceries in the house or being able to use 1/2 the stack on the Cybex press machine in the hotel fitness room isn't going to get it for me. Maybe one day it will be but today is not that day.
The surgeon who will be performing the procedure has done several dozen similar to mine. His success rate is 95%. He is rather conservative with the rehab portion of recovery post surgery but I believe that is because he deals with athletes who routinely try to push too hard to fast and diminish the long term performance results because the healing process wasn't fully completed. During the procedure he will drill several holes in my bone that he uses to sew the torn tendon to. Some surgeons uses anchors or screws to sew the tendon too but anchors require larger holes in the bone and the permanent placement of a foreign object into the body. With the tendon being sewn to the bone in about 6 weeks it will have reattached to the bone. After the 6 weeks rehab will begin.
Surgery is scheduled for 08.09.2017.
I had been dealing with some elbow pain on and off for awhile. When the pain would flare up I would back off from any movement that aggravated it, wear elbow sleeves and work around it. The pain would go away and everything would feel normal. What I was unaware of is that the pain was being caused by a bone spur. Apparently the bone spur had worn and weakened the tendon until it finally tore. When it finally tore was while benching but it was only because the tendon had been weakened by the bone spur.
I intend to speak with my surgeon about preventative options and am going to ask if x-rays could possibly identify any other bone spurs I may have elsewhere and see if removing them would be a preventive option for something similar to this in the future.
Thank you for wishing me well. I will update my log with progress post surgery.
Ted