When Laura Bollinger takes her
place at Grace United Methodist Church’s
organ on Sunday mornings, the sanctuary resonates
with a rich, powerful sound of music.
Just 22, Laura is regarded as one of Missouri’s
best and most promising young organists. A senior
majoring in organ performance at Southeast Missouri
State University, Laura plans to pursue a master’s
degree in sacred music and work toward a career
as a minister of music.
Laura has been playing and studying the organ
for seven years, and has served as organist at
Grace for the past four years, playing for two
services every Sunday morning. She is also an
accomplished pianist. Her hands are busy hands. |
It was as a high school senior
that Laura first experienced carpal tunnel symptoms.
"I had a little pain in my wrist," she
says. "I thought it was from piano and organ
lessons, playing for musicals at the high school,
things like that."
The pain returned at an inconvenient time and
in earnest in 2000 when Laura was preparing for
her important junior recital. "My fingers
would go numb. I’d wake up in the middle
of the night and my hands would be numb. I was
practicing three or four hours straight then,
but the pain forced me to break up practice into
shorter sessions."
Still, the pain persisted. Laura’s mom,
a nurse, suspected the problem might be Carpal
Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). Cape Girardeau neurosurgeon
Scott R. Gibbs, M.D., Brain & Neurospine Clinic,
confirmed that suspicion. It was, he says, "a
textbook case."
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Laura Bollinger |
Fifty percent of patients with
CTS have it in both hands, Gibbs says. Those who
don’t generally have CTS in their dominant
hand. Laura’s case was bilateral. She underwent
outpatient endoscopic carpal tunnel release on
both hands, one month apart, in May and June,
2002. Just a few weeks after surgery, she was
playing the organ again.
"I started playing the piano in the second
grade, so for years I’d had that constant,
same action going with my hands. It just built
up over the years – sooner for me than for
some others," Laura says.
Laura adds she was thrilled with the results
of her surgery. She’s back to practicing
the organ five to six hours a day and looking
forward to graduate school this fall. "Having
this carpal tunnel procedure made a real difference
for me," she says, "and for my future."
Learn more about CTS by contacting Southeast
Missouri Hospital’s Generations Family Resource
Center, 651-5825.
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