Joyce Davenport was hastily carrying a couple of packages up her driveway when she turned a corner and suddenly lost her footing. Her instinct was to protect the packages, not herself.
She fell hard on her right shoulder and hit her head in the process. Before she even got her bearings, she knew something was wrong.
“It didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t lift the arm,” Joyce says.
It was a few days before Christmas in 2016. Instead of seeking treatment immediately, Joyce decided to wait it out and see if her shoulder improved over the holidays. It didn’t. She wasn’t in pain, but she couldn’t lift her arm—her dominant arm—any further than she could right after her fall.
So, Joyce scheduled an appointment with David L. Glaser, MD, Chief of Penn Medicine’s Shoulder and Elbow Service right after New Year’s Day. An MRI revealed that Joyce had a fully torn rotator cuff.
Within a few days of her initial appointment, Joyce was watching Dr. Glaser surgically repair her shoulder. (It’s an option he makes available to some patients.) I could see him creating the holes and tapping the plastic screws in. I think he put in six,” Joyce says. “It didn’t hurt at all.”
An injury of that caliber in a 75-year-old woman would prompt most surgeons to go straight to shoulder replacement. But Dr. Glaser knew of Joyce before her appointment, and he knew that such an operation would end her career.
Queen of the Squash Court
Joyce is widely considered to be one of the best American squash players to ever play the game. She was inducted into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame in 2012.
She’s won two national singles championships and more than 60 other national singles and doubles titles. (As a tennis player, Joyce also competed at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1969.) At 75, she may have been the most dominant player in the world in her age bracket.
Joyce fell victim to a couple sprained ankles and strained calves through the years, but she always managed to find a way to play through injury—until the torn rotator cuff. “Some of it is luck. Some of it is genetics,” Joyce says. “I’ve never trained very hard, and that’s been good and bad. I’ve worked instead on skills and strategy.”
Still Going Strong
Rather than replace the shoulder, Dr. Glaser repaired Joyce’s torn rotator cuff. It’s a more intricate procedure, but it gave Joyce the best chance of competing again.
The sling she wore during the weeks after her surgery didn’t keep her from coaching at the Berwyn Squash and Fitness Club. And as soon as she was cleared by Dr. Glaser, Joyce was back to practicing. The most difficult aspect of her recovery, she says, was finding a comfortable sleeping position.
More than two years removed from her surgery, Joyce, is pain-free and competing regularly. Last year alone, she played in seven tournaments and won the world masters title for women 75-and-over, becoming the first American woman to hold it.
“I didn’t regain all of the strength in my shoulder. I kept active during the recovery, but I wasn’t as consistent with the physical therapy as I should have been,” Joyce says. “When I swing now, the ball doesn’t go to the same place, so I’ve had to recalibrate. But who’s to say that wouldn’t have happened with aging anyway?"
Joyce may be the only one who recognizes the difference in her play. In April, she added yet another title to her long list of them: Philadelphia Women’s Doubles Champion.