Patient Stories
Severe Wrist Arthritis Treatment: Bill's Story
Date posted: 4/14/2026
Last updated: 4/14/2026
Table of Contents
Bill Austill, 65, a practicing attorney in Birmingham, Alabama, recently found himself unable to clap, comb his hair, lift his young grandchildren, or open a door without a lot of discomfort.
“The pain in my wrist was so bad that I was pushing myself to play golf and just do everyday things,” he explains. “Typing on my keyboard at work was difficult too.”
A dedicated golfer since age 12, Bill struggled to keep up his distance and handicap. “The golf back swing forces your wrist backwards and that is the motion that really hurt. My game was negatively affected.”
He had given up other sports like tennis, pickle ball, and ping pong, all of which hurt his wrist. Determined not to give up an active lifestyle completely, he started talking to local physicians in 2020 who diagnosed him with severe arthritis in the wrist. He tried a denervation procedure in 2021 which, as warned, was not successful in relieving his symptoms. Disappointed, he carried on.
Time to seek a higher level of care
But it was one day while fly fishing that he decided to be more aggressive about resolving his pain.
“I have been fly fishing since I was a teenager,” Bill says. “I really look forward to my twice a year U.S. fishing trips and an annual trip somewhere around the world. But last year I tried to throw out a line with my fly rod, and I just couldn’t do it. I knew it was time.”
Bill searched online for a higher level of treatment. He learned about a surgical procedure called proximal row carpectomy, and came across a recently published research paper entitled “Return to golf after proximal row carpectomy and four-corner arthrodesis for scapholunate and scaphoid nonunion advanced collapse” written by two Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush wrist surgeons in Chicago, with Dr. Robert Wysocki as the senior author. Immediately, Bill liked that they were able to return patients specifically to golf at a high frequency.
As he read more, he learned that both proximal row carpectomy and scaphoid excision four-corner arthrodesis were motion-sparing surgical procedures used to treat advanced wrist arthritis of the type Bill had. These procedures could dramatically reduce pain, maintain functional motion, and improve grip strength.
Finding the best treatment at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush
Bill reached out to Dr. Wysocki who promptly responded. They corresponded a few times by email and phone and Dr. Wysocki sent Bill surgical statistics and outcomes. He invited him to his Chicago office for a consultation to best diagnose and potentially treat him. Bill agreed.
“I had great confidence and hope after seeing him,” Bill recalls. “We talked about my goals, he looked me in the eyes and explained everything very carefully. I had faith that he was the expert to help me.”
The procedure Dr. Wysocki recommended for the best outcome was a scaphoid excision four-corner fusion. Given the severity of his arthritis and involvement of multiple individual joints of the wrist, this procedure would provide a more durable and predictable outcome than a proximal row carpectomy. The fusion procedure is more complex to perform with a slightly longer recovery, but with a well-done surgery and a focused rehabilitation effort, the results should be nearly identical to the carpectomy.
Bill returned home to Alabama to complete a planned golf trip. Upon his return, he flew back to Chicago for surgery at Rush Oak Brook Outpatient Center. He stayed overnight in a comfortable local hotel, arrived early in the morning for surgery, and was on a plane home later that day.
During the procedure on Bill’s scaphoid where the majority of the arthritis was present, Dr. Wysocki carefully re-aligned and fused four remaining adjacent bones to eliminate the second site of arthritis and restore the stability his wrist needed to move through a smooth arc in the future. The fusion was achieved with internal dwelling pins to hold it steady and some of Bill’s own bone graft (like bone marrow) to stimulate rapid healing.
Bill performed a regimen of occupational therapy at home and returned to see Dr. Wysocki at two, four, eight, and 12 weeks post-op. Both he and Dr. Wysocki wanted to be completely sure that he was healing properly. Each visit proved that the procedure had been a success.
Golfing, fly fishing, and picking up grandchildren again
Recently, Bill was asked if he was glad that he underwent the wrist surgery.
“Glad?” he asked. “Just last week, four months after surgery, I played golf. I wasn’t very good, but the next day I placed second in my group. I don’t have perfect extension yet but am close. And I picked up my three- and four-year-old grandkids again. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
Bill is lifting weights in the gym again and looking forward to his next fly fishing trip this summer, pain-free.
