Brachial Plexus Injury - Kyle McKenzie

In Kyle’s Own Words

“I now have a pretty functional arm by comparison with where I once was. I can carry things. I can close doors. I can get a lot of use out of it. It still has an issue but it's certainly much, much better than where I was prior to seeing Dr. Brown. The nerve transfer surgeries are all total successes… Everything he did with those, I've shown recovery…I have actually a pretty strong bicep. I can lift a good amount of weight with it.”

About three years ago now, I was out in Thailand. I loved Thailand and the accident happened, literally, on the very last day of our trip. I was with friends and we decided to rent scooters that day. So I was riding a little motor scooter in kind of a hilly environment and as I was taking a turn on the road, a bus came speeding head on into my lane and hit me head on. It threw me across the pavement and banged up my body a bit.

I was in a coma for a week to two weeks after the accident and then flown back to the United States. I was taken into a trauma care unit here in San Diego and they put me in a neck brace and did all the things that a trauma unit does, like MRIs, things of that nature.

I had jaw surgery there on the spot. My jaw had been shattered in two places and I had a brace put in and that was something they told me afterwards – I was pretty out of it at that time. I didn’t have brain damage, but I was still kind of waking up and figuring out what the heck was going on with my life.

My left arm wasn’t working at all, and in my head, I’d been thinking, “I’m sure it’s just something temporary that’s going to heal– it’s part of the accident. I’ll be fine.” The doctors at the trauma care unit were saying, “Yeah. It’s going take a little while to heal. Just give it time and you’ll get better.” I said, “All right.” And so the next couple months I was pretty much couch-locked. I was just sitting there recovering.

I had a lot of spare time and I started doing research. I read some articles and the medical journals on my injury, and what I kept noticing in the articles was that they kept saying to find a specialist, someone who specializes in this kind of injury, the brachial plexus injury, and find them because a typical neurologist at a hospital won't give you the right diagnosis. They don't have the tools to do so.

So I began to look around and see if there was anyone in my local area that specializes in this type of injury, and that's where I came across Dr. Justin Brown.

When we got in contact with him and his office, they took me in pretty quickly. The first thing he did, he set me up with some pretty high-powered MRIs to really get a good look at things. And it was a couple of weeks after that when we got back together. He looked at me and said “All right, you’re going to need to be operated on to have any sort of real improvement. It’s not going to get better on its own. They were incorrect with their diagnosis and I need to operate.” And so I agreed to this. I wanted to get better and so over the next couple of months, we did various tests. I think it’s an EEG. It’s something where they put a bunch of needles into me and had me try and move my arm in various ways to see which muscles and nerves were firing and which weren’t. After a couple of months Dr. Brown did the first surgery. The first surgery went well and I recovered from that, and then we said “All right, let’s do another one.” He did another surgery then. And then we waited for 5 - 6 months and I actually started the recovery, little bits of it at a time. My left bicep started to twitch and move and I was actually starting to see some improvement.

What Dr. Brown had been telling me was that he was hoping for a little more recovery and he wanted to wait and see but there may be a need for a third surgery. So we waited and waited and eventually got to a point where we said, “All right, we hadn’t had as much recovery as we wanted from the second surgery, so we’re going to do a third surgery.” And this was a bigger one. They went into my ribcage. I have a big scar on my side now, but that was my third and final surgery and that took a little bit longer in terms of recovery but I think it was good and I'd say now for the most part, we’ve had success.

I now have a pretty functional arm by comparison with where I once was. I can carry things. I can close doors. I can get a lot of use out of it. It still has an issue but it's certainly much, much better than where I was prior to seeing Dr. Brown. The nerve transfer surgeries are all total successes. I think the proper term is neurotization. Everything he did with those, I've shown recovery.

I have actually a pretty strong bicep. I can lift a good amount of weight with it. The only surgery that did not work out was where he did a nerve graft from my neck into my shoulder. But everything else beside that, all the nerve transfers they all worked amazingly.

I'd say I've kind of slacked off in my physical therapy. If I were working harder at it there’d be further recovery. For a while there, I’d do lifting weights and doing physical therapy exercises and I was noticeably seeing strength improvements and better functionality. And so I think it's more so on my lack of effort at this point, but I think if I were to get back into it, I would continue to improve.

The biggest thing I’d stress would be finding someone capable, someone who understands the issue and can either guide you to someone who can fix it or who can fix it themselves. Dr. Justin Brown is one of those many surgeons. I feel like I owe Dr. Brown as the work he has done for me is incredible. It just takes some work on a patient’s part to seek that. And I would really stress to do that, because it's time-sensitive. If I hadn't gone and found him in the time soon after I had these injuries, there’s kind of a shut off window. So it needs to be done sooner rather than later.

And Thailand – I loved it and I would still go back. I had a lot of fun there. But I would not get back on a motor scooter.

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