Strength Amidst Chaos: My Surgical Story & Living with Chronic Pain

I share my personal experience with multiple shoulder surgeries and the complications I have faced. I highlight the lack of accountability in the medical industry and the challenges faced in finding a surgeon who could help me and actually cares about my ability to live a thriving life. I touch on the emotional and physical toll these surgeries have take on a person. I also discuss the impact of chronic pain on daily life and the toll it has taken on my physical and mental well-being. I emphasize the need for accountability in the medical profession and urge others to be cautious when choosing surgeons. Despite my struggles, I remain determined to find a solution and continue serving others through this podcast.

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How does one keep pushing forward after a life-altering accident? Discover the raw and unfiltered journey of perseverance and resilience in this emotionally charged episode. I recount my 2019 cycling accident that shattered not just my clavicle but also my career as a professional athlete. Listen as I share the immediate, shocking aftermath of a high-speed crash, the rushed decision for surgery, and the painful process that defined my path to recovery. This episode is a testament to the human spirit’s unyielding strength in the face of severe physical and mental challenges.

Ever wondered what it feels like to navigate a healthcare system that sometimes falls short? Join me as I unravel the complexities of dealing with unsuccessful surgeries, from a botched clavicle surgery to the relentless pursuit of proper medical care. I expose the systemic issues that plague our healthcare system and share my personal battles for accountability and effective treatment. From the chronic pain of a mishandled AC joint surgery to the emotional toll of persistent pain and impaired functionality, this episode sheds light on the importance of self-advocacy and the frustrations of navigating a broken system.

This isn't just a story about physical recovery—it's a deep dive into the emotional and mental toll of sustained adversity. Reflect with me on the broader implications of these struggles, including impacts on mental health, professional life, and overall quality of life. Despite the immense pain and frustration, I emphasize the importance of authenticity, inner fulfillment, and the power of resilience. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that encourages you to find strength and purpose in your own life, no matter the obstacles you face.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And I need you to be a minister for a moment and find somebody sitting in your general vicinity. Look them dead in the eyes if they owe you $20, and tell them neighbor, whatever you do, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. It's hard to keep pushing. In the world that we're living in right now, how is one supposed to find serenity and sanity and strength in the world we live in right now.

Speaker 2: 0:58

I keep pushing on update everyone on the or sorry, not update, but just let everyone know if you're new here kind of the whole little story with the why I decided to get surgery in the first place and you know everything that happened. Um, I was debating on whether to get into explaining the anatomy. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to start talking about things, assuming that you know and this anatomy is pretty complex and convoluted if you don't understand the shoulder or stuff going on with the shoulder. So just, if you really want to know, just Google it and you'll see the things that I'm talking about. Um, within explaining everything that that way, I don't have to like explain you know what this bone is, what this tendon and what this ligament is. You just have to Google it. And I know if you're not a surgeon or if you don't know anatomy, well, it can seem complex. It really isn't crazy complex, honestly, when you just do a quick Google search of the shoulder and you can kind of see some of the images and stuff. So yeah, so let's start so I can update people.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Okay, so in 2019, I was a full-time pro athlete. I was in a cycling crash on February 9th of 2019 down in Tucson, arizona, which, coincidentally, is where I'm from, where I was born. I was down there training with my partner at the time we're both pro athletes and I had a crank installed on a titanium bike that I was racing on. Now, if you know bikes decently well, titanium flexes more than carbon. Excuse me, clear my throat real quick. I just woke up and I figured I'd record this episode, but having some issues getting it out. So, if you know titanium well, it flexes more. There's more give to it, so it makes for a nicer ride on gravel, essentially, and I was training to compete in elite pro gravel racing. So I had this carbon crank made by Easton that was a gravel crank installed on the bike and, uh, I had it installed by a professional mechanic at Fairwheel Bikes in Tucson, arizona, you know, double-checked by this guy.

Speaker 2: 2:54

And the next day I went out on a group ride on Saturday with this uh, it's called the shootout, but I did the scoot out, which is a little bit uh lit, less fast, of a version, but still very, very quick, of a group ride. It's about 60, 70 miles, um, with a lot of pro cyclists at the time and just elite level cyclists, um, and it was about halfway through the ride in this, uh, this area that's slightly downhill but it's a sprint area, so it's an area where everyone gets up out of the Peloton and sprints for positioning and tries to be first to the stop sign. There's a lot of little workouts sort of built in this ride and that's why people go on it. You get really fit. So I got up to sprint.

Speaker 2: 3:34

I was in the very front of a probably 60 to 70 person Peloton I want to say it might have been a little bit smaller, but that's kind of what I sort of think it was and when I got up I was going 38 miles per hour. I got up to put a bunch of force in my crank to sprint and the carbon crank with the titanium bike. It flexed so much because of the titanium chassis and the crank that it ripped my chain off. It ripped my chain off. That force of my chain being ripped off unclipped both of my feet when I was sprinting to go that fast and I tried to save the bike. It was impossible. It was a little like I got hit by a car. It happened in a blip of a second and I was slammed on the ground. Thankfully all the people behind me were able to avoid me. I slammed in the ground, spun in the air, slammed the ground again and again. I hit the ground at like. I think it was between 36 and 38 miles per hour. I was live clocking on Strava, so I don't remember the exact mile per hour, but it was very fast.

Speaker 2: 4:33

I don't ever remember losing consciousness, you know, when people pulled over, like a lot of friends with me. You know, my helmet was smashed. My right shoulder I really couldn't move it very well. I had a huge gash in my leg that was split open from the crank, cutting into it. My right shoulder I really couldn't move it very well. I had a huge gash in my leg that was split open from the crank, cutting into it. My right wrist was in a lot of pain and then my head was just pounding, you know.

Speaker 2: 4:54

So it was clear that at the time I might have had a neck injury. You know, might have done something to my collarbone, might have done something to my shoulder. So I got a ride to the ER. The ER that was closest to me was, coincidentally, on the side of town I grew up in, which is a really shitty hospital St Mary's Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. Excuses if you work there, but that's a shitty hospital in a shitty area of town and it's no secret in this country that where there's more money you get better healthcare, and there's not a lot of money on this side of town that I grew up on and so it's not known as a very good hospital. So anyways, I got pretty shitty care at the ER. They first misdiagnosed my shoulder injury. They took like 45 minutes to do a CT scan of my head. It could have had a brain bleed. They initially sewed my wound up on my leg. It wasn't fully clean so they had to reopen it. So it was a shit show. So during this whole time I saw a couple of surgeons during the first sort of what would it be called the acute phase, because when your ligaments are floating around in there you have a little amount of time, like four to six weeks, to actually reattach those ligaments and a lot of the surgeons I saw just had to leave it alone. You, you know I my bone was popping up. I had an AC grade AC joint separation. Grade three AC joint separation. I had a some some tearing on my right wrist and my scapholunate ligaments, um, and I had a severe traumatic brain injury as well too, um, so I had all the classical symptoms of the TBI. We're not going to get into the TBI in this episode because I'm going to focus on my arm and where I've been since then and I've already talked about the relationship and how that ended and everything. So I'm not going to get into that either.

Speaker 2: 6:29

But fast forward about a year from the crash I was back home in my home of Flagstaff, arizona, and it was still running, still competing, but not a pro runner anymore. I really had to take some time off, but still running. I could run fine, I could ride fine. I just had a little bit of instability in the shoulder and you know, visibly it wasn't. I didn't really like that. My bone was sticking up, it was. It looked weird to me, but when you look at photos of me back then you really couldn't tell. It was more of like a self-conscious thing for me. But there was some instability, but I wasn't in chronic pain, I was functioning. You know I was working, I was working out, I was running. You know I didn't have any. It didn't affect my running at all really, but I worked.

Speaker 2: 7:12

I was working with this healthcare company that's the only one in Flagstaff and so I met with this surgeon. His name is Dr Scott Gibson, he's a fellowship trained shoulder surgeon and he still works for Northern Arizona Healthcare. I met with him a few times and sort of told me you know I'm still have some instability and you know you trust these people, right, you go to them. They're going to tell you, hey, you shouldn't get operated on or you should. And you know he was really honest with me. He was like, or what I thought was honest at the time, he's like you know, I think we can make it better. And I said, okay, what are the risks, what are the complications? And he explained to me you know, pretty low risk. Obviously there's a risk for infection. That rarely happens. You know he never mentioned anything about the possibility of my coracoid fracturing, never mentioned anything about the possibility of me losing functionality of my trap or causing issues in my neck. None of that stuff was ever mentioned to me as far as risk.

Speaker 2: 8:05

And I did my good, my due diligence, I did a lot of research on my own and what he had assured me is that this type of surgery he was going to do was the most advanced, even though you know there's not a lot of. There's still like tons of surgeries that people do on this specific injury. There's not like a conclusive surgery that surgeons are doing which you know should be a red flag, to be like yo. These guys know what the fuck they're doing, to be honest. And so he told me he's like I'm going to drill two holes in your clavicle. I'm going to drill one hole in your coracoid. I'm going to run Kevlar like a suture through that and then I'm going to run a, an allograft, which is, you know, a cadaver tendon, wrap it around all that and then sort of crank it back down and hold it together with two buttons on the top of your clavicle, one button on the bottom of your coracoid, and reduce what they call reduce me or reduction. They bring your clavicle back down.

Speaker 2: 8:50

And he also mentioned he's going to cut the tip of my clavicle off Excuse me, guys, to clear my throat. And I asked him like okay, why would you cut the tip of my clavicle off? Like don't we want that structure? And he said well, actually we want to prevent arthritis from developing. I'm like, okay, that made sense to me. Then Little did I know. It's fucking so stupid to cut the clavicle for no reason. You remove structure from the body. Your body needs that structure. They are preemptively treating disease that doesn't even exist yet. There's highly unlikely you're even going to get arthritis in that joint. They really don't know the rates of which that will come on, depending on your biology, depending on how young you are, all this other stuff, right, and we can treat that if you do develop arthritis, versus like we're just going to cut a piece of the bone off. It was so stupid. But this is what this guy was recommending at the time. Okay, this is a surgeon, right, this is a professional.

Speaker 2: 9:39

So I decided to get surgery with this guy and, mind you, before I got surgery like again, you know, I wasn't in chronic pain, I was running, I was riding, I was doing all the things I just had some instability because that joint was not tapped down, it was loose. So, specifically with pushing motions, with pull-ups, I was fine. Bicep curls I was fine. I mean, my body was fine in that way. But I couldn't. You know, there's a little instability with pushups, with chest presses, that kind of thing, dips were fine Doing dips. I could do hundreds of dips, I was fine. So I got surgery on September 24th of 2020.

Speaker 2: 10:12

And immediately when I woke up from surgery, I knew something was wrong. My clavicle felt completely pinned down, I had pain in my neck and, of course, I'd never woken up from a surgery. It was my first surgery. So I figured at the time, this is just normal, this is just how it hurts. It hurt really bad and it's just recovery. So, obviously, a follow-up with the surgeons. And he said, yeah, surgery went great. He was telling me, rest assured, it went well, you're healing well.

Speaker 2: 10:38

So I had the first follow-up two weeks after that and I was complaining of pain. I was like, you know, there's, it hurts right over my clavicle, it hurts right under my clavicle, you know. And he was like, no, it's completely normal. So four or five months go by, I keep seeing him keep complaining of pain, keep complaining Like now, my, my scapula wasn't moving properly. I had sort of radiating tightness, like it was like a tight band coming down from my my neck, on the side of my head, basically all the way down to my clavicle, to the attachment.

Speaker 2: 11:06

I had pain right over my coracoid and I would come in and he would say, oh no, completely fine, completely normal, and I knew something was up. You know this guy was bullshitting me. He was sitting there acting like things were fine. He didn't order one MRI, he didn't order a CT scan. He did x-rays, but x-rays don't show fractures, x-rays don't show the tissue. So I said, fuck this, I'm going to a neighboring ortho. So I went to Flagstaff Bone and Joint. I saw Dr Flint, which all these guys are buddies, you know you look at the orthopedic surgery industry, it's a good old boys club. These guys are all friends with each other, specifically in regional locations, because they go to clinics together. They they meet, they give presentations. You know, it's a good old boys club. So I'm with this dude, dr Flint, and he orders a CT scan, mri.

Speaker 2: 11:48

Sure enough, I have a fracture in my coracoid which is a very, almost impossible bone to fracture unless you literally have your arm crushed and it's so low likelihood that this surgery causes a coracoid fracture. It literally it should be considered malpractice if your coracoid fracture, because really it has to do with the angle and the site of the drill hole that they drilled through the coracoid. Now they probably drilled it too anteriorly, meaning too far forward, and so the pressure that your clavicle is putting on, pulling up while you're doing exercises and just going through your normal day, you know you're moving your arm it'll fracture. I have very dense bones. My bones aren't going to fracture easily. I haven't broken a bone in my body until this still, until this day and I've been an athlete my whole life and so it showed that I had a coracoid fracture.

Speaker 2: 12:37

But they also couldn't explain why, you know, my neck was hurting, why, you know, I had all this issue in my arm and my like, my AC joint was still hurting. You know what? I had all this issue in my arm and my AC joint was still hurting. What I thought is I thought immediately when the graft was put in, either the angle of the graft or how it's pulling my clavicle, it's just not right, even though it looks right in an x-ray it looks like, oh, this looks like a fine reduction, but something's wrong. Something's wrong. There's multiple things that are wrong since that surgery and you know I'm looking to professionals to explain this and so realizing that I wasn't going to get the care I needed in Flagstaff and this has been a year already.

Speaker 2: 13:12

You know I'm in pain all the time. I mean you can, anyone that knows me, when you're sitting with me, I'm always touching my shoulder, even clients when I'm on video Zoom call, I'm always touching my shoulder. I'm always moving my neck because I'm consistently in discomfort and I'm in pain all the time, even when I'm doing activity like working out is painful, right, but you know, I was still working out, I was still trying to put on muscle mass to help. I was doing everything I could, going to PT up the wazoo. I spent thousands of dollars on dry knee acupuncture, a massage, really trying to break up scar tissue.

Speaker 2: 13:40

You know, thinking that that was the, that was the reason, because this is what the surgeon was telling me. He, he, not you know, not once would say like, hey, this is my fault, I made a mistake. Of course they're not going to say that because you know they opened themselves up to a lawsuit and this is again I'm going to get into this like lack of accountability in this industry and that these people are just. You know it's impossible to sue them because they're dealing with human bodies. They're dealing with, you know, people's ability to thrive and live their lives. I mean that is. That's fucked up. When you put someone in that position, I don't give a shit if you're trying to help them or not. If you fuck up someone's body, you should be held accountable for your mistakes, especially if you're considered a professional. I don't know what the difference of that is versus going to, you know, attack someone on the street. It's literally the same thing. It's like someone has the same end result that they're in chronic pain. They're suffering for the rest of their life, you know. And you just made money because you got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through the insurance. That just seems. It's mind blowing to me.

Speaker 2: 14:33

So I decided to uproot my life and come to San Diego, california, where, coincidentally, I actually went to undergrad. I had a good friend here that said you know, I could stay as long as I needed to find another surgeon. There's obviously surgeons here that work with high level athletes. Hopefully someone can help repair the damage that this surgeon in Arizona caused. And, mind you, I would have gone back to the guy in Arizona, but he was bullshitting me. I mean, I would go meet with him. I met with him like seven or eight times and he'd be like no, this is normal. You know, you're just healing. You know, and it just it's just complete and utter bullshit that the dude was just like lying to my face and and I was I was obviously in dysfunction and pain. You know, I'm going to complain about it all the time.

Speaker 2: 15:12

So I moved, moved my life. I mean, arizona, northern Arizona, has been home for a long time. I never wanted to leave there, but this is how bad of a state I was in, like I moved, I picked up my entire life, moved it to San Diego. And so when I got here, picked up my entire life, moved it to San Diego. And so when I got here, I started to interview surgeons. So I first started with the chief medical officer for the Padres, dr Catherine Robinson.

Speaker 2: 15:32

Holy shit, man, I got zero empathy from this lady. It was like stone cold. She couldn't empathize with my chronic pain. She was like it's you know, you have a non-union coracoid fracture. Just leave it alone, I can't do anything for you. You know, it's just like a lot of these surgeons, like if they, if they can't do anything, they just say, well, nothing can be done, versus saying that you know what? I'm not skilled enough to do something and so I can't cut you open, I can't help you, but maybe someone else can. You know, this lady was super like, it's just. I mean, my friend was, was in there with me. It's like and the lack of understanding that I've experienced with so many of the surgeons is fucking mind boggling, because these people cut bodies open every fucking week and they become numb and desensitized, that every human being is a actual fucking human being and they have to live with what you're going to put them through for the rest of their life.

Speaker 2: 16:17

Now, mind you, I'm a unique case because I'm a ex-parathlete, like. I'm a very active person that requires a lot of my body, but no one would want to live with this arm. Trust me, that they have to suffer with every day. You know whether it's sleeping or even walking, like my arm swing. Running. I couldn't run nearly as far at all. I haven't ran since my first surgery, really, because my arm swing is severely altered. My arm does not swing back like it should, and I know this because I've been a pro runner for 10 years. I know my gait, I know my anatomy, I know my biology, I'm very attuned to my body, I know where things are supposed to be and something's wrong.

Speaker 2: 16:52

And so this lady, she ordered a bunch of tests. I had an MRI of my brachial plexus. My nerve group showed nothing. I had multiple nerve conduction studies, emgs, mris up the wazoo and she's like, yeah, can't help you.

Speaker 2: 17:08

So I met with Dr Steve Mora, who is a UFC surgeon. This guy was in Orange County and you know he he agreed that you know, something needed to be done, that I shouldn't be feeling this way after surgery, that something must've gone wrong in surgery. But he didn't feel confident to open me up either. So he passed me on to another surgeon in LA. I went to the surgeon office office. This office was like a shit show. It was like just a gross office. I walked out of that office and then I kept looking for surgeons in San Diego and you can just just like follow me here. They're just.

Speaker 2: 17:30

There's so many and dead ends here that I'm running into. I'm trying to find help. People are like don't give up, keep searching. And I'm doing this. Right, I'm getting injections uh, like pain injections, you know, to try to figure out where the pain's coming from. And I know where the pain's coming from. The pain's coming from the graft, the pain's coming from my bones that were drilled holes in and also like the tissues around that that are severely altered now from what I think? Is it being positioned wrong?

Speaker 2: 17:54

You know and there's so much to what's going on with me because you know there's there's the issue that's stemming from my neck and like going into my trap that was caused from the first surgery. There's the issue of the clavicle being cut, my AC joint or the space between my AC joint being widened and not being stable. There's the issue of my cork wood. There's the issue of now my scapula not functioning the right way because of all this, and this is just like this is all due to this first surgery, right, and then I meet Dr David, who's the surgeon I've been working with in San Diego, and when I first met him, you know he took a lot of time to listen to my excuse me, to listen to my story. You know he seemed very empathetic, he seemed very compassionate to what I was going through and he said you know you shouldn't be, you shouldn't be feeling this way. And you know, no-transcript me back to pre-surgery days, because even after the crash I was way better off than what I am now. Excuse me, man, my nose is running here excuse me, man, my nose is running here, uh.

Speaker 2: 19:30

And so he went in there and when I was in anesthesia, in in November of 2022, he decided to cut that piece of my coracoid. That was a fracture which which, now that I've done so much research in clinical, it's just you should not do that. You should not cut someone's coracoid like that. Even if it's an ununiform fracture, there is no clinical evidence. All the outcomes that I read about show a less than desirable outcome. When you cut someone's coracoid, because there's so many things attached to that, even if it's fractured, you should just leave it alone or try to sort of bond it together somehow Maybe stem cells, maybe something else right, we didn't exhaust those options, so we didn't exhaust those options, so I didn't have a say in this. I was under anesthesia, I was sleeping, my coracoid he cut.

Speaker 2: 20:12

So because he removed a piece of my coracoid, and a rather large piece, he had to reattach the short head of my bicep tendon and the coracobrachialis, which, again, my bicep was fine. Nothing was wrong with my right bicep. There was nothing wrong with it, and because he cut it, all that tension was released in that bicep. I need to reattach it. This is called a tendinitis. This is also super fucking dumb because, unless someone has an issue with that tendon, it's been shown that tendinitis are awful. They cause a bunch of issues in the tendons. They make it less strong, they make you have these cramping sensations. They lead to a deformity, usually called Popeye's deformity in the bicep, and this is usually talked about with the long head, because the long head is very commonly ripped with bodybuilders or people that are lifting a ton of weights with their bicep, but not with the short head. The short head is responsible for so much of your kinetic movement in your arm, your power, how things move, and it also is responsible for stability in your shoulder too, because it attaches to that part of your scapula which is called your coracoid process.

Speaker 2: 21:04

And he decided to do this when I was sleeping and I woke up and he said you know it went well, my surgery went well. You remove the buttons. You know he was like telling my friend who was taking care of me he's like I'm, you know, I'm pretty, I'm sure that this is going to be better. And a couple weeks goes by, okay, it feels. It feels a little better, but that was mostly what I'm realizing a pattern here is because of the nerve block. My arm would always feel better like a week after surgery because of the nerve block was wearing off and my brain was resetting to the pain and then, boom, it would come right back. And so I had the same issue.

Speaker 2: 21:33

And now I had an issue in my bicep. My bicep just felt weird. It started to hurt, it started to sort of seize up, it started to feel like it was cramping. I couldn't lift as much and of course he didn't want me to lift for a while. So I didn't realize this till like months and months after, because he asked me to not lift any weights on my right arm to let that bicep heal. And I didn't know what it was, what, what it was going to lead to. I figured like, okay, it'll be the same, right, my bicep? And it wasn't.

Speaker 2: 21:59

So months go by and I'm like, dude, my bicep is hurting. And so I go in and meet with him and he's already on those other tests and I'm still. I'm still believing in him, I'm still trusting him, you know, and every time I bring up the bicep he's sort of like skirting over the issue. He's just like, well, we need to focus on. You know your AC joint. I still think that's a problem. Or your, you know your coracoid and I'm like I don't. It just doesn't make any fucking sense to me to do that, um. And so now, not only do I have all the issues I'm complaining about still with my shoulder, now I have a bicep issue, um. And so we decided to go in again after we did another MRI, and this is in May 2023.

Speaker 2: 22:42

Now, the goal of this one was to go in and remove some scar tissue, and I was still convincing him. I was like please remove the graft, please remove the graft. But I also had an idea of like what if we try to install something from the tip of my clavicle to my acromion and try to replicate the AC ligaments? Because my acromion is moving independently from my clavicle and that's not supposed to happen. On my left side it moves as one unit.

Speaker 2: 23:04

Right it's basically like this A frame, and because the stupid surgeon in Flagstaff, dr Gibson, who's an absolute moron, cut my clavicle, since my clavicle is shorter, you have more space between that joint, which is so dumb, and so it's harder to make that joint more stable because there's more space. It's simple physics, just like putting a bridge you have a little river, it's easier to build a bridge. You have a bigger river, it's harder to build a bridge, right Space. So he agreed, he's like, okay, let's try to install this, dr David. I mean agreed. He's like, let's try to install this thing called the biobrace, which is basically, you know, this porous material that allows your cells to kind of bind with it and theoretically allows something to be formed like a ligament or like a tendon, you know, to create structure in the body.

Speaker 2: 23:49

So he installed this thing and, you know, woke up, he took and removed some scar tissue. He also did an acromioplasty which, again, we didn't speak about, I didn't agree to. This is when I was sleeping. And again, surgeons have, you know, they have their ability to sort of, you know, maneuver within areas depending on what they see fit for the patient. But their chromioplasty also was a bad idea. He tried to free up some space because he thought maybe my suprascapular nerve was being pinched, maybe that was causing the pain. It's not what's going on here, but that's what he thought. I knew it wasn't the issue. Um, so he took some scar tissue out around that and woke up and again, same issues after I do all this PT and remind you I'm I'm going to PT after all these surgeries real building my entire life Cause they cut your arm open again.

Speaker 2: 24:38

So it's something traumatic, right. You rebuild, you lose muscle, you know you're bleeding, you're doing stuff. You wake up every. It's just trauma after trauma after trauma, right. And these people are making hundreds of thousands of dollars on every surgery. I mean shit, tons of money, you know. And I'm having to pay my super high deductible, which is five or $6,000 every freaking year, to meet that. I'm getting billed off the walls here for PT, for acupuncture, for dry kneeling, for massage. I'm trying to do all these things for laser therapy, right, as a consumer. So I wake up, nothing gets better.

Speaker 2: 25:09

Went back to him, you know, meeting with him multiple times. I think I've seen this guy like 20 or 30 times now and he's, you know, he's still baffled. He's like I've never seen this before in 20 years. And, granted, I skipped over a really important piece.

Speaker 2: 25:19

So when I first met with him in November of 2022, after my first surgery, he brought up the idea of malpractice, because when I, my friend was in the room with me and when I brought up I was like, look, I know I shouldn't be feeling this way. My coracoid shouldn't have fractured, you know. Is there any reason for you to believe that there were? You know, there was negligence in the first surgery. And he said, oh yes, absolutely, there was definitely surgical error. And so I'm like, okay, in my mind, I'm like I need to get call lawyers because this is, this shouldn't have happened to my arm.

Speaker 2: 25:50

You know, this dude in Flagstaff messed my, he butchered my arm as a, as a professional with a license to practice medicine. And so, you know, I brought that up with with Dr Dave at the time and he was like, he was like, yeah, you, yeah, that makes sense. And I said, would you be willing to talk to an attorney on my behalf? And he said, yeah, I will, I'll do what I can. And so he said these things right, I wouldn't have contacted an attorney if he didn't say these things. And so, after my second surgery, I went around because you have X amount of time to contact an attorney I went around, found an attorney through a friend of mine who is based in Arizona, put him in touch with Dr David and then, you know, dr David basically told the attorney on the phone that he wasn't willing, you know, to testify and that you know surgical complications and errors happen.

Speaker 2: 26:31

And I don't know why he did that. I mean maybe because he's the president of the Synergy Orthopedic Group here. Maybe he's trying to save face because he wanted to be involved with it, because, again, it's a who's who in this area and if people hear that you're snitching on other surgeons, it doesn't look good. Maybe he truly believes it was a malpractice and he changed his mind. I don't know why he would have lied to me and told me that in the beginning, but it was the case.

Speaker 2: 26:57

And again, I'm not saying this to of people like you know, people stay quiet all the time in this industry and I'm like this is my life, man, this is what I'm living through. I wake up every day in pain and dysfunction. When I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, my arm doesn't swing normally. My arm doesn't swing normally when I walk. I can't run because my gait's so different. Because of my shoulder, my bicep is in pain all the time. I can't lift nearly as much weight as I could before my second, third and fourth surgery.

Speaker 2: 27:25

So instead of solving the main issue I came here for. He created a whole new one and on top of that I went through all the work of finding an attorney that would go to bat for me. And attorneys are the same type of people. Unless they're going to make money, usually they don't give a shit. To be honest and I say that with all due respect because I know there's some good people out there but most attorneys aren't going to take a case because it takes a ton of work to put a case together to prove malpractice and for what. But they make a couple hundred grand. Is that worth it to them? They can make more grand on a case when someone dies or something else. Right, my case is what they call shallow pockets. It's not going to make them a ton of money, but I think it's the ethics behind holding a surgeon accountable the one in Arizona that caused a bunch of damage and also didn't provide me standard of care.

Speaker 2: 28:03

When I went back asking him like, why is this hurting? Why is this hurting? You can even see in my, in the reports that he would write in, type in on his, on his reports. He didn't even, he didn't even acknowledge that I was complaining of pain, like when I look at the reports for the, for me being in his clinic it'd be like oh patient is recovering well. Like oh, patient is recovering well. Like you know, function as well. You know he says he's doing well. He'd never actually wrote down what I was actually telling him. Because I've looked through all these records now as a patient, because I put these records together to take to other surgeons to show them what I'm going through. You know, it's just. It's just. I wish this story was made up, but it's not. It's so fucked up, the system is so fucked up. Um, and so I you know this guy again in San Diego won't go to bat for me.

Speaker 2: 28:42

I'm getting super pissed off because I'm like, dude, I've already done two surgeries. You know, here I am going out of my way. I'm, I'm, I'm looking for other surgeons opinions. I'm contacting surgeons all over the place. I contacted Dr Steven Stroll in New York and he was like he. He called me on the phone. He was like I don't know why this guy would do a, a, a, a chromioplasty. And then he's like why did he cut your coracoid? I don't know why he cut your coracoid. And so I put him and Dr David in touch. Dr David spoke to him on the phone and then, after Dr David spoke to him, dr Stroll talked to me.

Speaker 2: 29:15

He's like well, he seems like a good guy and he still to argue that like mistakes were made and no one's helping me. Like like these guys are not helping me get better, they're providing, they're just giving me excuses and then not say anything. And, mind you, like I'm texting my surgeon here in San Diego, you know, and he was very responsive in the first couple of surgeries, but now, after the second one, he's he's not very responsive. He's not texting me back right away, like you know. I know he has a life, I know he has family, I know he has other patients I'm not saying that I'm the only important person, I know that but like you could tell that he's like starting to ghost me, you know, like you could totally feel that you could totally see that my friend, who's like I'm staying in the house she lives in, like you know she, because you can see that too, you know this person.

Speaker 2: 29:54

I knew I get in touch with them and we decided to do a third surgery here, which is a fourth surgery total. And again, I'm trying to convince them to remove the graft, please remove the graft. I also was like, please remove the bio brace. Because the bio brace that he put in, again trying to mimic the AC joint, is starting to rub on my bursa. It's starting to fray tissue in there. It's not doing its job. I hear it popping and snapping all the time in my shoulder. It was just a shot in the dark and it's causing more issues than not. So and I'm asking him like, what can we do about my bicep? You know, like you cut my bicep, you cut this bone off. That bone's shorter. Like you have less area to attach things to. Like, what can we do? And he's like struggling in his shoulders. He's like not, he doesn't answer anything when I'm asking him about my bicep. It's like he's not acknowledging how big of a problem that is, on top of all the shoulder issues. So went in under surgery again November of 2023. This is my last, my most recent surgery Woke up and again, not a damn thing changed, as you can imagine.

Speaker 2: 30:47

You know texting this guy and I'm receiving less and less correspondence from him. You know, I'm obviously visibly frustrated. I, you know, I'm sending him a text message, like you know, hey, I'm very frustrated. Like I've been honest with you about stuff, I feel like you know what I've wanted is not being respected. I feel like you know, you, these surgeons are more quick to remove my native anatomy versus the shit that is not native, that was put in surgically, that is, that was put in on the onset of all these symptoms, which, logically, like how does that fucking make sense?

Speaker 2: 31:15

I'm going to take out native bone and native tissue before I take out non-native shit that was put in at the inception of the issue. That doesn't make any fucking sense scientifically or logically. But these guys are so egotistical and stuck in their ways Like they think that their fucking shit is literally, like creates more structure than natural human anatomy. It just doesn't make any sense to me and you know I've waited a while to record this episode because I didn't want to like throw my surgeon here, san Diego, under the bus, because I've spoken about him saying that you know he was compassionate, he did listen to me in the beginning, but fucking A dude, I am in way worse off now than before I came here and I was already fucking in a really bad position given the mistakes that the Flagstaff surgeon made.

Speaker 2: 32:02

I mean that guy's an absolute horrible surgeon and I've had some people reach out and, like you, can go on Google reviews and he has all these great reviews. And if you look into the reviews, the reviews he has high reviews are total shoulder replacements dealing with 70 and 80 year olds. That's not the same thing as a I was 30 years old at the time an AC joint separation, which is a much more finesse, fine surgery. So when you look at someone's Google reviews it doesn't tell the whole tale. You have to make sure they're doing the exact surgery you're doing, that they have records to show they're doing that surgery good, that they're having good outcomes with people around your age group, with people around your athleticism. I mean it's different operating a 30-year-old athlete than it is offering a 70-year-old retiree who just wants to be able to move their arm right.

Speaker 2: 32:47

And this guy in Flagstaff assured me that he was that surgeon. He had the ability to, you know, make things better. And he made, he fucking ruined my arm. I mean he made my life awful. Every day I have to wake up in pain, I mean when I walk, when I'm walking just down the road, when I'm just walking like my arm does not swing normally right, I'm in pain and dysfunction all the time. I mean, I've lost countless hours of sleep. I've lost motivation, depression, all these things that come with your body being like this.

Speaker 2: 33:19

And you would only understand if you suffer from chronic pain in some way, because I never knew what it was like to be in chronic pain until I was put in this position by a surgeon. It's. You can't relate to it. So, even if you try to wrap your mind around it, you just know where you could. And trust me when I say this is an awful way to live. I would wish this on no one. This is literally. It's like you're in a jail cell in your own body. You have no power. You're powerless.

Speaker 2: 33:43

I keep looking for answers to try to change this and nothing's getting better, right, and so I had this forced surgery. Not a damn thing happened. I've texted the surgeon. He completely ghosted me, doesn't respond to texts, right. I've gone to his clinic. I've sat in front of him. Nothing, you know he's like well, it could get worse if I go in again. Well, no shit, dude, obviously you know he's got nothing to say. You know, can't help me. Um, he, he put me in touch with this other surgeon in in um in San Diego, heinz Heinecke, who he's like well, I don't know, I didn't, dude. We've been, I've been with you for a year, you've opened my body up three times and now you just mentioned this fucking guy. What the fuck? It just seemed like he was passing me off right, just punting. Okay, I don't know what to do. So I'm going to punt fourth down.

Speaker 2: 34:32

So I go see this guy Hines, who literally looks at my shoulder. He has all these records and he's like oh, it looks. See, my fucking arm is so different from one side to the other. Anyone a five-year-old kid can see it. If I take my shirt off and they look at my shoulder and they look at my, my clavicle, it's like are you fucking kidding me? It's just, it's mind boggling.

Speaker 2: 34:49

So I left that guy's office and, mind you, I'm paying to see these guys. Like 300 bucks to see this dude, 300 bucks to see that guy. You know, I saw another nerve conduction study dude who, just, you know, basically said no, it's not your nerves, you know, and I know it's not my nerves, I know it's a, it's literally. I mean obviously your nerves are responding to the issues, but it's a mechanical thing. My, my my shoulder it's. It's not in the right place. Bones have been cut, things have been altered. It's fucking like Swiss cheese in there because these guys have gone in and not done what they're supposed to do.

Speaker 2: 35:20

And the crazy thing about this fucking profession is specifically with this surgery. You know, with arthroscopy, doing knees, doing other things, like they might have that shit, full proof. But with this AC joint surgery, there's only a couple of guys in the US that really know what the fuck they're doing. The rest of these dudes are just making it up and they're getting paid a shit ton of money. You know. And, mind you, I want to say this I don't have a doubt in my mind that if I saw the surgeon here in San Diego first after I crashed, if I lived here, he probably would have done the job right the first time and I wouldn't be complaining. But because I saw that moron in Arizona who assured me that he was talented enough to do this and he fucked up my arm.

Speaker 2: 35:53

Now I've been stuck in this hole for literally over four and a half years, trying to crawl my way out of it and feeling helpless and feeling like I've. You know, I mean people know like I've had to cut my work back. I literally am so less productive because I'm in pain all the time. The podcast has suffered because of it. Like, even if you don't know me from out there, you guys know I stopped posting on social media. I'm just been in such a hole because I'm in pain all the time. You know people say you're playing pickleball Dude. I'm in pain all the time and I'm playing pickleball.

Speaker 2: 36:24

My arm is not nearly the same. When I swing an eight ounce racket which weighs nothing, or eight ounce paddle which weighs nothing, I can't really throw like I want to throw. I can't go throw a ball. I can't do the things I want to do. I'm 34 years old, I'm still really young. You know if and when. Hopefully, if I have kids, I want to be able to play catch with them. I want to be able to pick them up with my right arm.

Speaker 2: 36:42

Like these guys cause so much damage and their their whole excuses Like, well, I was trying to help you. I'm like that's not fucking good enough in any profession, like whether it's a military or anything like that. If we like physically harm someone and put, if we hit someone with a car, right, right, and you're just like. Well, I was just trying to make a right-hand turn. Sorry, I didn't see you there. I have my license. You know it's like dude, you would go to fucking jail.

Speaker 2: 37:09

But in this surgery industry, people are so padded and protected by malpractice insurance and by their clinics that, unless they kill you or unless they literally cut your limb off, it is almost impossible for you to sue them. And these guys should be held accountable. I mean, this surgeon in Flagstaff should absolutely be held accountable. This guy fucking has ruined my life for four plus years. I've spent so much money and then, granted, he made money off of that surgery. He made a ton of money.

Speaker 2: 37:30

And I'm not the only one that's had this outcome. There was a couple other people that I saw on Google reviews that I reached out to, and they were both younger people that had finesse type surgeries like this and same thing happened to them. They're in chronic pain, they've had to move states they're looking for and this guy he's just doing the same thing, right, and the crazy thing is like this there was this dude on his behalf. This is like fucking random bro in Flagstaff that reached out to me on Facebook that started to like threaten me. He's like. He started like threatening me on Dr Gibson's behalf and he started to say, oh, just, he was like he's this white dude. He's like just wait till you get back to Flagstaff. And I'm like, just wait, motherfucker.

Speaker 2: 38:08

First of all, you obviously don't know who the fuck I am. Whether I have one arm or not, I've been a fucking warrior and a fighter my whole life and nobody getting to fucking intimidate me. But the fact is that this surgeon is having this random dude reach out to me on Instagram. You know I had to fucking, or sorry, on Facebook. I had to make a police report against this guy, mark Hoffmeister, because this dude is like a lunatic. You know he got arrested for beating his wife like in the 2000s. It's crazy.

Speaker 2: 38:32

It's like it's crazy how this fucking story continues to evolve, like because these dudes are like they know they did something wrong. You know this dude, dr Gibson, and his and his brother in Flagstaff, who are both orthopedic surgeons, like they know, like he knows he fucked, he fucking did something wrong. But because I'm speaking up about it, he's trying to silence me, like he's trying to intimidate me to silence me. I'm like, dude, you're not going to fucking intimidate me, bro, like, first of all, I'm in so much pain in my arm based on what you did to it already. Like you think I'm going to give a shit about your little, your little threats? Like I grew up in the ghetto, dude, I grew up around shit you wouldn't even, you couldn't even imagine. I've been exposed to shit before you know, when I was like nine, 10 years old, that you've never even seen in your life. So, like, that's not going to work, obviously.

Speaker 2: 39:17

And that's why I decided to finally record this episode, because this shit needs to be spoken of, spoken to, because I know there's so many people all over the country and probably all over the world that are experiencing the same stuff within the healthcare industry. And I'm going to speak to the US because the US is so fucking corrupt with how insurance works, with how pharmaceutical works. I mean, what society wants me to do is get addicted to painkillers, and I'm not going to do that, like I'm not going to take opioids. It's only going to ruin my life, right, that's not a feasible answer for someone who's in chronic pain.

Speaker 2: 39:46

And people like well, meditate, it's mindfulness. I'm like, dude, you can't shove meditation and mindfulness and yoga at someone who has a physical, like limb issue that's in pain all the time. That shit doesn't work. Trust me, I fucking tried it. I can't meditate because I'm in pain all the time, because I literally like I'm in fucking physical pain all the time. It feels like there's a knife in my shoulder when I move all the fucking time to anyone that spends, uh like extended amounts of time with me, they can see it, you know.

Speaker 2: 40:11

But people try to assume that they know what it's like and you don't just like I don't know what it's like to have cancer, right, but what I can tell you is this feels like cancer in a way that, like the one, there's no cure for it, no one's helping me and it keeps getting worse and I've had it. But the only reason is because it's not fatal, meaning like it's not terminal. We just shrug our shoulders at it and I'm here to tell you it is terminal. It sucks the life out of you, it doesn't allow you to live, it doesn't allow you to thrive, it doesn't allow you to love, it doesn't allow you to be present, it takes the gift of presence away from you, because you're suffering in every moment, from the moment you go to bed, through your sleep cycle, from the moment you wake up, it's the same shit. You're just trapped in a jail cell, suffering over and over again because of what these guys decided to do. And then they shrug their shoulders and like, well, sorry, buddy, can't do anything for you. That's not good enough. People should be held accountable. And so here I am. It is June 6th and I've had four shoulder surgeries June 6th, 2024.

Speaker 2: 41:15

And I saw another surgeon in San Diego, north County, who was actually really thoughtful. He took the time to look over all my records and see everything. And he's like North County, who was actually really thoughtful. He took the time to look over all my records and see everything and he's like oh yeah, I know, tal, I know, you know Dr Heineke, he's like you know they're good guys. I'm like like I'm not arguing that they're not good guys, but honestly, like the way I've been treated is fucking horrendous. And and he's like you know case, but regardless, I am a case. This is, this is reality.

Speaker 2: 41:52

And you know he, this doctor, agreed. He's like I don't really know why they cut your coracoid and I'm he's like it sucks that they cut your clavicle too. I wouldn't have done that. You know and and. But he's like you know I don't feel confident enough to go in and open you up. He's like, yeah, I could remove the graft, but there's no guarantee it's going to get better. I'm like I know there's no guarantee, but at this point that's the only thing I can think of and that's what I've been saying this whole time. The graft should have been removed from the first revision surgery just to see if the graft was the issue, because you can always put another graft in, but you can't install another coracoid on me because that's my fucking bone. You can't install another clavicle once you cut it, that's my bone. So just the logic, like the process of operations. It doesn't make sense with the way these guys are thinking.

Speaker 2: 42:31

And so you know this guy was like shook my hand. He's like I can't help you and I told him all right, my last sort of my last sort of thing here is I'm going to fly out to Colorado and see the doctors at the Stedman Clinic in Vail, which, coincidentally, I got in contact with after I crashed. I was going to fly and get surgery there, which I should have, but my shitty insurance at the time didn't cover out-of-state surgeries. So I had to stay in Arizona and because I didn't have the support, because my partner had left, I had to stay in Flagstaff because there was no other place. I couldn't drive down to Phoenix, I didn't have the support, couldn't go to Tucson. So that's why I decided to go to do it with Flagstaff and this guy was very the surgeon in Flagstaff was very confident.

Speaker 2: 43:06

You know schmuck type ego in this fucking industry Just like, oh yeah, I can. No problem Like this, we'll get better and you'll be back to your feet. No time healing and you know you'll be like 95% and you'll be, you'll be great. I'm like that's not how it fucking happened, buddy. You literally ruined my fucking arm. Um, so uh, yeah. Now you know I've been living with this and and I know there's a lot of anger and resentment and frustration that's coming off my voice and it should. There should be like. I'm not holding that back. There should be a lot of those things, because this is my fucking life, this is my ability to thrive. Yet I show up every day. I show up for clients. I still try to record this podcast. I still try to give back to society as much as I can because I'm a fucking warrior and I've been that way my whole life and I believe in serving others.

Speaker 2: 43:51

And if I was a surgeon? There is no way, because everyone has kids, they have someone, all these people have loved ones. Right, there's no way I would want to ghost someone I'd operate on, I would stop responding to their messages. There's no way I would cut someone open without a clear, concise understanding of what the problem is and I would never leave someone worse than when I found them. That is not medicine. That is not medicine. There is no excuse for that and people should be held accountable for those mistakes.

Speaker 2: 44:19

It is not okay just to shrug your shoulders and say, oh sorry, surgical complication, it's part of the job. That is not an okay response to fucking up someone's body, I mean in any other profession. Think about how heinous that is Like. Think about if you went in for plastic surgery and you came out and you didn't have a nose and then the surgeon was like sorry, just kind of missed. You know, move the knife in the different, wrong direction, sorry, that wouldn't fly. You'd find an attorney, you'd see the hell out of them. But that's an elective surgery. But how? An orthopedic surgery where people are doing their knees, ankles, like I just had Angelica on the show a couple episodes ago where she talks about how this surgeon ruined her ankle and she was a thriving college softball player.

Speaker 2: 45:03

I mean, these stories are not uncommon people. This happens all over the place. But what happens to these people? Well, that pain sucks life out of them and they disappear. They either die by suicide or they get addicted to opioids, or they fall off the face of the earth because they're so depressed or they're so anxious, or they just live in pain, in pain all the time. So your brain, your brain, starts to change. Your brain starts to literally change. My personality has already changed a little bit based on how much pain I'm in all the time.

Speaker 2: 45:29

Granted, the regular stresses of life don't stop right. Relationships, friendships, family, job, finances all that stuff is still there, just like every other normal human being. But I wake up every day in physical, chronic pain. I can't go out and enjoy a run, I can't get up high in the mountains like I used to, things I love to do were stripped from me because of this surgery, and that's why that dude tried to silence me, tried to threaten me, because he knows that he made mistakes and he knows his reputation's on the line and because I left him some horrible Google reviews out in Arizona, he probably has business turned away and I'm glad, because you should not go get operated on by that dude. Fuck that guy. Seriously, if you're an elderly person and you read those reviews and you want a total shoulder replacement, that's cookie cutter. We know how to do that surgery then sure. But if you're trying to get an AC joint repair, get the hell out of Northern Arizona, go down to Phoenix, go somewhere else.

Speaker 2: 46:27

Do your due diligence and research a surgeon under so much scrutiny. Interview them. Do not just get surgery right away. Interview multiple surgeons. Make sure the person you're going to does the exact surgery you want. They have positive outcomes on that specific surgery. Ask them for records, ask them to prove it to you.

Speaker 2: 46:45

Do not get surgery on someone just because they're salesmen, because, again, these guys are surgeons. They get paid to do surgery right. I'm not saying that they just jump to surgical conclusions all the time, but that's what they get paid to do. They don't make money unless they do surgery. They don't make a lot of money doing clinic operating hours. Right. They make a lot of money going into the OR putting you under anesthesia and cutting your body open. That's what they make money on, and if you think about how that works, your body's really not meant to be cut open like that, and so, in my opinion, you really should only get surgery if it's like absolutely necessary.

Speaker 2: 47:16

It's traumatic, right, you were in an accident so you can't use your arm Like. My arm was pretty good, but I just wanted it to be more stable. And he he's the one who sold that narrative to me. If he, if that surgeon in Flagstaff would have just said you know what, just leave it alone, I don't want to wake up, fucked up. And he didn't say that. He sold me a completely different reality, which was that I would wake up and after I heal, I'm going to be a lot better off.

Speaker 2: 47:49

And I'm not. I'm in pain. I've been in so much pain since that first surgery and now that my biceps altered because of that coracoid fracture that the first surgery caused and because the surgeon here decided to cut my coracoid and reattach my bicep, now I have a fucking bicep issue and my bicep is like visibly deformed. You can look at my bicep now and you can see like the tendon is not in the right place, there's a bulge there that wasn't there before that. That first surgery in San Diego. I mean, it's like you can't make this shit up. I wish you could.

Speaker 2: 48:14

And again, if, if you don't understand all the anatomy that I've gotten into in this, in this, uh, this episode, just Google it. Like I thought about explaining it all to everyone, but it's, it's not going to do you know it, justice. I mean just explaining it to the podcast, just just Google. You know a chromial convicular joint, ac joint, coracoclavicular ligament, cc ligament, your chromium, your scapula, your coracoid, you know, short head of the bicep coracobrachialis, right, these other things. You can Google it and you can see. And just, you know, look at a picture while I'm talking through this stuff and you'll understand, you know.

Speaker 2: 48:50

But that's where I am, guys, it has been so fucking exhausting. I mean, everything in my life has suffered, from my personal life to my work and to my ability to just to wake up and be happy, just to experience joy and happiness. Um, you know, it feels like my arm isn't even part of my body anymore. I don't even recognize it. It's not connected. Um, my reflexes are different. Uh, you know I'm right-hand dominant, right, I'm dominant and, uh, you know, I pick up a lot of things in my left arm now because my right arm is just like, yes, I can use my arm, but it's it's hard to explain this here in the body Like it's not. It's just there's fucking shit that's wrong with it. There's things that are just not in the right place. You know, it's just like it's been cut open so many times and it hasn't, is not there.

Speaker 2: 49:32

This graft in my arm is still causing a bunch of fucking issue. The cutting of my coracoid is causing a bunch of fucking issue. The cutting of my clavicle is causing a bunch of fucking issues, you know, and I still have the shit that was put in by that first surgeon Still hasn't taken it out. No, one's taken it out. I have the biobrace that was put in by the surgeon here. That's causing fraying in my bursa. That's like rubbing up against other tissue and causing other issues, and that that's still in there.

Speaker 2: 50:00

So this is where I'm at and you know, um, obviously a lot of people reach out and they're like, oh, try rubbing this on it, like please. Uh, I appreciate all the compassion, but unless you know what you're talking about your essential oils and your herbs and supplements are not going to help my arm. Trust me when I say this I have tried everything possible on the planet because you guys know I'm a very scientific, logical human being. I've spent literally months and months reading peer-reviewed clinical articles, going down all the rabbit holes on the internet to try to figure out different ways I could help myself heal. So unless you have an idea of surgical intervention, unless you're a surgeon yourself, unless you're a PT and you really understand anatomy I've done, you know, oodles and oodles of PTs, with different PTs, from PTs that work with pro athletes to you know, post-operative surgical repair, all this stuff, and the PTs are dry on a blank too. You know they can't help me. I can only do so much PT.

Speaker 2: 50:58

What's going, what's wrong with my shoulder, is really a structural and has to be repaired surgically if it, if it even can anymore and I don't know if it can because my body's been so altered now by all these fucking stupid decisions that I am literally missing bones and ligaments and parts of tendons and muscles that people have rearranged or taken out to try to repair things. But they've just made the wrong decisions. In my opinion. They have not thought logically. A lot of these surgeons. They don't think about shit before the day of operation, they just go in and they, you know, figure it out. Then I really need to need someone that's going to focus on my case, literally going to take it home with them and focus on it and really look at all the things right, see it from all angles, really put a ton of analytical, holistic thought into it, because the body is a whole unit, it's not just the AC joint.

Speaker 2: 51:46

A lot of these surgeons just myopically look at one thing to create structure and that's fucking retarded. Excuse my French, no, it's not a PC word, but that's really what it is. It's just so stupid. Like you have to look at the body synergistically and how it moves and functions together.

Speaker 2: 52:00

If you're just treating one thing, that's not medicine, literally. That's why pharmaceuticals like opioids it's not medicine. You're literally just, like you know, tricking someone's brain into thinking that they're not in pain. They're still in pain, they're still suffering and I get it for end of life care for someone that's in this horrible accident. I understand the use of those things, those narcotics, in that situation, but to require someone to chronically take pain meds is like the only alternative to them. Suffering is so inhumane. It is so inhumane. I don't know how people can go to sleep at night doing those kinds of surgeries on people, sending them home in more pain than they started with, and then them getting addicted to a painkiller and then literally going home and being a parent and thinking that they have love in their heart. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's insane to me.

Speaker 2: 52:48

So this is where I'm at y'all. I just want to say, you know, I really appreciate everybody that supported the show. I appreciate the support on social media, but I'd be lying to you if I wasn't saying I'm running out of steam. You know I I'm flying to Colorado, hopefully next week. I have so much stuff going on as well too. Just, I'm just exhausted for so many reasons. I'm still going to try to pump out as many episodes as possible because I'm committed to you know, I have to find some way to to survive.

Speaker 2: 53:18

Um, but uh you know, I have felt this entire time that things can be better for my arm, a lot better, and I just keep running dead ends, like these surgeons just keep, you know, just ghosting, leading me astray. Um, you know this, this clinic in Colorado is pretty much my last hope, honestly. I've done multiple PRP injections. The last thing left is stem cells and there's not a lot of, honestly, data around stem cells. It might just be a complete sham. I know some people have had positive experiences with it, but that also could be a placebo effect. When you actually look at the science, there's not a lot of science supporting mesenchymal stem cells or embryonic stem cells that actually regrows tissue or tendons. There's just not a lot of proof for that. Like, it's easy to prove, to prove if stuff is growing right. You inject stem cells, you wait X amount of months and you do another MRI and you show the tissue and the bone's been changed. But we haven't been able to show that with stem cells. So you know, does stem cells work or not based on our current science? I don't know. I will get stem cells in Mexico at some point, even though it's incredibly expensive, but that's. You know, that's where I'm at right now and you know, I still think that surgeon in Arizona should be held accountable, specifically because of how not only the mistakes he made in the surgery, but how he handled my aftercare. How he didn't write down like legitimate notes in my chart on what I was telling him about the pain I was suffering. How he didn't order a CT scan or MRI after I was complaining about pain over my coracoid. You know, I think he did a horrible job at that surgery. I do think that there was surgical errors and mistakes made in that surgery. Of course I was sleeping so I'm not able to prove it, but there are other people in the room, you know, and this, this, he's had these results with other people too. I know he has. Um, yeah, so that was my best go at sort of summarizing where I'm at with all this shit, um and uh.

Speaker 2: 55:15

I still have some bit of hope, you know, hopefully, if I fly out to Colorado and. But I'm obviously very hesitant to get cut open again because things have only gotten worse. I've spent, I can't even I've lost track. I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars now. Um, you know, I was in a pretty good financial situation before I had my first surgery as a 30 year old I was youold after I had to stop being a pro runner because of the crash. I was saving, I was working, I was doing a lot, and since then I've spent pretty much my entire savings on medical care, on paying off medical debt, on medical treatment, on surgery after surgery, after surgery because of I don't know, this bullshit system that I'm existing in right now.

Speaker 2: 56:00

If you're out there and you've been through a similar situation and you want to come on the show and talk about it, send me a message on Instagram, shoot me a message through my, through my site. You know, maybe I'll get some flack for this episode, you know, but I I'm here to be honest and this, this is my, this has been my honest experience uh, throughout the past four and a half years of my life. And uh, yeah, it's, it's fucking exhausting, guys. Like really, it is so exhausting. Um, like when you actually have to like put in energy to smile or to laugh or to have those normal human experiences. Like that wasn't my normal before my first surgery. Like now it's like when you see me smiling on an Instagram post, I'm like I really have to like try hard to like be present in this podcast when I'm recording, because I'm always moving my arm, I'm always in pain, right, I'm always like shifting, I'm all. I can never really relax just sitting down. I'm in discomfort, I'm. It doesn't feel like my arm is in the right place.

Speaker 2: 56:56

It feels like my right shoulder is just hanging on Um, can't relax, can't meditate. You know it's not fun for me to do yoga, um, you know, can barely work out with, with a lot of limitations, um, but that's where we are. You know, I refuse to uh take um pain meds because, again, that's a bandaid that's not going to heal me. Um, although I have taken them on bad nights, uh, when I'm, you know, really struggling uh just to sleep, but, um, I don't take them regularly cause it's just shit. Man, that's the industry. The industry is a billion dollar industry for a reason it traps people, um, and I think orthopedic surgery is honestly a pretty shit industry too, in my opinion.

Speaker 2: 57:39

I know there's some good orthosurgeons out there. So if you're listening, hopefully you don't take too much offense to this, but you know, if you're really honest, you know your industry and you know there's a lot of surgeons making money. It's a very small minded industry that people. Rarely does someone look at the entire body rarely, even in clinical hours. These surgeons are sort of told by the organizations they work for see a patient for 15, 20 minutes, get them out the door in clinic because you want to see the next one and the next one you don't want to keep people waiting Because of that. We don't do our due diligence to actually investigate someone's biomechanics and look at their body holistically and observe everything in motion weight bearing, while moving, while running, while walking, while climbing, while doing pull-ups. We don't get to do that in clinic and that's that's a fucking damn shame. We're not. We're not being the best medical providers we could be when we're doing that. We're. We don't have, you know, all the evidence, we don't have all the tools we need and we're making mistakes. We're making a lot of mistakes surgically, and that's really unfortunate because people like myself, all these, all the people that are going through stuff like this they have to live with this. They have to live with this their entire life. They have to go back home to their families. They have to raise kids like this if they want to have kids, if they can even have the energy to have kids. They have to go to their jobs. They have to put food on the table. They have to work on all these other stressors of life while still suffering every moment of every day, with no break. You never get to relax and that is just a damn shame. We have to do better and, at the very least, we need to hold people accountable for when they do that to people. Accountability is a huge thing. People should be held accountable.

Speaker 2: 59:12

All right, hopefully this didn't bring your day down too much, but I wanted to be honest. I know this is an hour episode. I wanted to be honest. I wanted to just lay it all out there, and I'm sure I skipped over some stuff because, again, I'm just recording raw here, so there's probably shit that slipped my mind, but I did my best to record an hour of letting people know where I'm at, and so we'll get back to episodes with guests and I'll be as cheery of an interviewer as it can be. But again, you guys know I'm always real here and this is what I'm going through. So rest assured that, until I say otherwise on the podcast or on social media, this is what my reality is and this has what it's been. This has been my reality since September 24th, 2020. I appreciate you being here. Hang in there.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame, so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion.

Speaker 2: 1:00:20

Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart, in your heart, in your heart. Thank you so much for tuning in to Star of the Eagle, feed the Soul. Please leave us a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify podcasts. It's a free way you can give back the show and show your support and, as always, if you want to work with me one-on-one, head over to wwwnicoborazacom.