Published: September 30, 2026
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Dorney Thompson was staring at the ceiling.
The licensed psychotherapist was not impersonating one of his many patients who had sought his care and counseling over decades in practice.
This time, he was the one who needed help.
Dorney was lying at the foot of the basement stairs of his parents’ old 1850s farmhouse. He had gone up and down those same steps for 71 years.
You’d think he’d remember how to do this by now.
But on this particular December day in 2023, he missed the top step on his way down. When everything stopped moving, he found himself crumpled at the bottom of the staircase with what would later be diagnosed as two broken wrists, a badly bruised hip and, “for some reason,” pain in his shoulder.
“I don’t remember the fall, but I remember being in a great deal of pain,” he said. “And that’s what set me down the path.”
That same December, Dorney underwent surgery to repair his wrists and completed extensive physical therapy to get back into shape.
Still, by the spring, his shoulder wasn’t improving.
In March 2024, he was referred to Nyagon G. Duany, M.D., orthopedic surgeon with Norton Orthopedic Institute. Dr. Duany ordered more images, which revealed arthritis and a severely torn right rotator cuff.
“When you have that, the surgery is not to repair the rotator cuff; it’s to replace the shoulder,” Dr. Duany said. “He was a little shocked at first. It took some convincing. We tried some conservative management and physical therapy, but he came back to me and said, ‘It’s not any better.’ So, we knew what we had to do.”
Dorney agreed.
“I was exhausted trying to do rehab on something that wasn’t going to repair itself,” he said. “I think I had already surrendered and decided that I wasn’t going to feel any better until we did something different.”
On May 7, 2024, Dr. Duany performed a successful reverse shoulder arthroplasty, also known as a reverse shoulder replacement.
Unlike a traditional shoulder replacement, this procedure reverses the joint’s anatomy, basically swapping the ball and socket. A metal ball is attached to the shoulder blade, and a plastic socket is placed on the upper arm bone. This design allows the patient’s deltoid muscle to lift the arm instead of relying on the damaged, arthritic rotator cuff.
“Before we were performing the reverse [replacement], patients often received a hemi, or partial, replacement,” Dr. Duany said. “[That procedure] would relieve the pain, but their function wasn’t very good. This reverse allows your deltoid muscle to handle the responsibility, which gives the patient a higher level of pain relief and function. Now, they can go back to doing what they want, with newfound stability.”
To say Dorney has a lot of hobbies would be an understatement.
His greatest love — music — first strummed his heartstrings as a preteen.
“It started when I was 12,” he said. “I was hooked when I heard the first Beatles album. And then I moved from electric guitar to acoustic when Paul McCartney played ‘Yesterday’ on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show,’ and I’ve never stopped.”
A childhood fascination evolved into a lifelong passion.
He’s played with the same bandmates for years. While the group’s name has changed from Dorney and Friends to Plumridge, a tribute to his family’s farmhouse, its love of music remains the same.
Over the years, Dorney has played across Louisville, from bars to festivals to assisted living facilities, among many other locations.
“I’ve probably got about 5,000 songs that I play on guitar,” he said. “And I can’t remember them all, so I’ve got them on an iPad. But I’m blessed … to have my bandmates, Mike and Barb. We’ve been together for a while, and we have some great fun.”
As if being a full-time licensed psychotherapist and lifelong musician wasn’t enough, Dorney spent 20 years coaching youth soccer, developed a passion for oil painting and devoted countless hours to maintaining his family’s Spencer County property.
That includes not only the old farmhouse, but also two log cabins and the surrounding acreage.
So imagine, at age 72, being unable to raise your right shoulder up above your head.
“I’m a busy boy. I wanted to have my shoulder work so I could keep painting, digging holes, pouring concrete, building things and playing the guitar, mandolin and fiddle,” Dorney said. “I’ve got a lot of reasons to want my shoulder to work.”
Dorney woke up from surgery feeling different, in the best possible way.
Next came rehabilitation.
He spent the next several weeks with his arm in a large sling while his shoulder healed. Mobility and independence were limited. But Dorney wasn’t about to sit still.
He bought a small, travel guitar and slid it into the opening of his sling. Just 12 days after surgery, he was playing again.
“I had this great, big heavy sling,” he said. “I did not like it at all, and it did not like me. But I pushed myself, so not too much about this surgery really slowed me down.”
As the weeks passed, the pain faded.
Regaining mobility took longer.
Ninety days after surgery, simple tasks still posed problems. Threading a belt through his loops, reaching for a wallet in a back pocket or scratching the center of his back were difficult, all common hurdles after a major shoulder procedure.
Still, he kept moving.
Some of his best therapy took place on the very property where the accident happened.
“It was just a matter of stretching those muscles back out,” Dorney said. “So, I came to the farm and picked up sticks every day. I picked up sticks that were sitting high and sitting low, and I’d throw them into the truck and then pick up more. All that movement eventually gave me full movement of my arm and shoulder.”
Four months after surgery, he was hammering nails again.
Soon after, he returned to heavier projects, including shoveling concrete.
By the one-year mark, he felt back to 100%.
“I had to go slow at first, but I was a little boneheaded and determined to keep moving,” he said. “But now, I’m basically good as new. It’s nice not having any shoulder pain at all. At my age, after all I’ve done, that’s pretty amazing.”
Today, more than two years out from surgery, Dorney is back to the life he loves.
He’s playing music at least every Wednesday night. He’s rocking his grandchildren to sleep. He’s maintaining the family property and welcoming visitors who rent his cabins for weekend getaways to nearby bourbon distillery tours.
Most importantly, he’s living pain-free.
“Now, I can reach back and scratch the middle of my back all the way up to my shoulder blades,” he said, giving a shoutout to Dr. Duany. “So, she’s my hero. And she knows it.”
For Dr. Duany, stories like Dorney’s are the reason she does the work.
“That’s my reward, seeing Dorney and all my patients doing exactly what they want to do without pain,” she said. “He’s such a nice person. Every time you see him, he’s smiling. He’s appreciative and easy to talk to. If I had met him on the street instead of in the clinic, I think we’d be friends. Seeing him doing so well makes me happy.”