The Arm Read Online Free PDF Page A

catastrophizing—the dead guy and what comes next and life without baseball and on and on and on.
    â€œYou think one thing,” Jennifer said, “and your mind takes you further and further into the future. Not just now, but oncehe starts playing again. How many years does he have left to play? He has to be precise and particular and so careful. One more thing goes wrong and he’s done. I don’t know if anyone has had a third Tommy John. I think the more it happens, the less likely you are to return.”
    It wasn’t just his career causing her the agita. Where would they have the baby? Pasadena, where they moved for the summer? Phoenix, where Coffey would rehab? Milwaukee, where she grew up? Rural North Carolina, their offseason home? Their wedding gifts were in Wisconsin still, and she wasn’t going to be able to travel soon, and—she stopped midsentence. The door into the waiting room opened. ElAttrache and Stan Conte appeared.
    â€œHe did great,” ElAttrache said.
    She sighed.
    â€œHe has a very big graft,” ElAttrache said. “The only issue was I wasn’t able to use his own tissue. It was precariously short. And I could see through it. It was a little bitty thing. This was much better tissue.”
    â€œOn my son, in that circumstance, I would’ve used the allograft,” Conte said. “I think that’s the best chance for him to get back. It really is.”
    â€œThe allograft—is his body going to accept it?” Jennifer said.
    â€œWhen you transplant his own tendon, there are still some living cells that emit chemical signals to attract blood vessels and things like that,” ElAttrache said. “The same thing is going to happen on this, in the environment it’s in, because it’s a very vascular environment. That process may be a little slower. We don’t know that clinically, but we think it’s correct. It’s definitely safe tissue to use. And it works.”
    â€œSo,” Jennifer said, “when will he be back?”
    â€œI don’t see this being a twelve-month return to competition,” ElAttrache said. “And based on the time of the year, the chances of him making it back for next season aren’t good. He just needs more time.”
    Jennifer would deal with their onerous year ahead soon enough. After nearly five hours, she just wanted to see her husband. She thanked ElAttrache and Conte and headed back to the recovery area, where Coffey, supine on a bed, was regaining consciousness. He wore a hospital gown and booties on his feet. He would leave two hours later with pain meds to be taken every four hours. Best of all, his fingers weren’t at all numb from the handling of the ulnar nerve.
    The first question Coffey asked Jennifer wasn’t about the dead guy. He knew it had been likely, and he’d get used to it. Nor was it about the rehab. His relentless optimism told him he would be back in twelve months, and so he’d aim for twelve months. And it wasn’t about the baby, or how Jennifer was feeling, or where they would move, or anything of that ilk. Like Neal ElAttrache, Todd Coffey was a man who kept his promises. And the day his elbow failed, he had made a promise to his teammates that he’d never forget them. Not even Propofol could break it.
    He looked at Jennifer, smiled, and asked: “What’s the score?”

CHAPTER 2
Dummyball
    D OCTORS CONSIDER TOMMY JOHN SURGERY one of the most successful medical procedures ever because it solved a problem. When an elbow ligament tore, it could be fixed. Baseball rejoiced. “We thought elbows were solved,” former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington said. “So we stopped thinking about them.”
    Because an answer for elbow issues existed, the sport never bothered to concern itself with the root cause of such injuries. Maybe it was mechanics, the way a player throws the ball and its effect on his body.