Your DH currently has full use of his arm, isn't feeling a lot of pain, and his condition is continuing to improve. I certainly wouldn't feel pressured to jump into surgery right now, especially given the lengthy recovery predicted and your DH's business demands.
I didn't get any further in the thread than this. The fact that his pain has improved and range of motion is better since his injury makes it clear that you can easily afford to wait for surgery.
Thank you everyone for all the great advise!! Dh decided to cancel his surgery and seek a second opinion. He read the disboards, looked at the research I found, and called a friend of ours who is a dentist and had a rotator cuff problem. Funny thing....our dentist friend told us he went to two Dr.'s. The first did a surgery that he said did not help him at all, actually made things worse. The second Dr. fixed him perfectly. We asked who was the first Dr.?....yup...it was DH's Dr. We now have an appointment with the other Dr. We are looking forward to a new opinion. I feel Soooooo much better now!!
Yay!
FYI, PT and chiro aren't exclusive. Yes, some PTs take weekend seminars and do some vertebral manipulation (which cracks me up b/c I have a BS in a pre-PT type subject, was in classes with people off to PT school, and they blasted me routinely for my plans to be a chiro...yet the biggest blaster of all was pictured in the alum mag doing a spinal adjustment), and some chiros take weekend seminars to do some PT, but officially they do VERY different things. So see both! The chiro, especially if s/he focuses on the vertebrae, will help with the foundation of the body, and the PT will help this specific problem, and he'll come out better, stronger, faster than he was before, LOL.
It's so disturbing that this MD was going to do surgery without a CLEAR reason! DH had an MRI of his pituitary gland, and the first one wasn't clear enough, so he was sent for a second. And surgery wasn't even a clear option (and is not now) for that; they just wanted a definitive diagnosis before going forward. He just recently had an MRI on his knee, and even though every symptom pointed to a meniscus tear, he just found out that the MRI shows a bone bruise, or at least it does NOT show a tear. Seems MRIs are pretty definitive, and it's just weird that this MD doesn't want absolute knowledge. Hubby went to a group of *surgeons*, so we were absolutely expecting that they would want to cut his knee open, but nope!
I can imagine that the dentist was freaked out by the first surgery! I don't practice chiro anymore, but when you have to use your arms and shoulders to work on others, it's scary to start feeling pain!
