A Chinese musician who lost all feeling in his fingers over 20 years ago finally had the necessary surgery to correct the issue. He can finally play the guitar again, and proved it, right in the middle of brain surgery.
Surgeons kept the man, Li Xiaong, 57, conscious during the deep brain stimulation procedure Monday, asking him to play the guitar so they could reactivate the area that caused his right hand to go numb, according to the People’s Daily Online.
Video shows the musician on the operating table playing through Beethoven’s “Für Elise” while his medical team attaches medical electrodes to different parts of his brain.
Li began having trouble with his right hand in the 1990s. The pain become so bad he was forced to give up a career in music. After many years of treatment and examination, the root cause was determined to be dystonia, a rare neurological disease.
The procedure has already brought back 80% of Xiaong’s muscular ability and doctors feel he should be back to full use of his fingers and hands after some rehab.
[via NY Post]