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For over an hour, as doctors performed a brain surgery on Mr. Li on Monday, the 57-year-old musician lay strumming his guitar.
Li, who hails from Changchun in Jilin Province, had been suffering from focal dystonia— a rare muscle disease that has been known to hit musicians – for some 20 years.
Over time, the ailment resulted in his fingers stiffening, making it difficult for him to carry out daily tasks and, of course, play the guitar.
After years of attempting to treat the illness with medication, he finally turned to doctors in Shenzhen in south China’s Guangdong Province.
“The major symptom of the disease is that you will not be able to repeat (or complete) the activities that you are very familiar with, because your muscles become very stiff,” Cai Xiaodong, one of the doctors who treated Li told the Guangdong-based Southern Daily.
However, in examining Li, the doctors further found that apart from suffering from focal dystonia, pathological changes over the years had also affected Li’s brain circuitry, further complicating the case.
Following the examinations, they concluded that Li needed to undergo a Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery.
DBS is a neurosurgical procedure involving the implantation of a medical device called a neurostimulator (sometimes referred to as a brain pacemaker), which sends electrical impulses, through implanted electrodes, to specific parts of the brain for the treatment of movement and affective disorders.
Although DBS isn’t new, if the doctors were to go ahead, then it would be the first time that the procedure would be performed in China, according the Southern Daily.
Given that, in order to test the effectiveness of the surgery, the doctors had Li lie down in the operation theater, holding his guitar.
As the minutes ticked by, they asked him to strum. After years of having been denied the pleasure of feeling the strings move to the beat that he wanted them to, Li finally struck a chord.
“How do you feel after playing the first sound after years?” the doctors asked. “It feels like I’ve recovered over 80%,” Li responded with joy.
“The surgery has an immediate effect,” explained doctor Cai after the procedure, adding that all Li needed now to enjoy full muscle function was rehabilitation and training.
