One of Scotland’s leading harpists has dedicated her new album to the hero hand surgeon who helped save her career.
Pippa Reid-Foster, from Helensburgh, snapped the ligaments in her wrist while surfing.
She suffered excruciating pain and problems playing for two years.
Doctors found the cause of the problem using an ultrasound and Pippa was referred to Dr Iain McGraw, Consultant Hand and Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
Dr McGraw, who is based at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, agreed to carry out a rare and delicate operation which could have left her unable to use her hands for good if it didn’t work.
Pippa said: “I love the sea and it wasn’t too long after my first album Driftwood Harp came out and I was out surfing one day near Machrihanish when I just got slammed and lost control.
“It hurt like Hell at the time, but I figured it must have been a sprain or something.
“But after weeks turned into months and months turned into years, I just knew something was wrong.
“I couldn’t play without painkillers, my fingers weren’t working properly, for a musician who plays and teaches for a living it was just terrifying.”
Pippa told how an ultrasound showed a mass of scar tissue on her wrists and picked up that her ligament had been snapped.
She explained: “They put me in touch with one of the leading hand surgeons in the UK, Dr McGraw, and they told me what they could do. He said, ‘we only perform one or two of these on a patient in the UK in a year’.
“Because of my career and what I do, he said it would be best to try but warned it was 50-50 as to whether it would work or not.
“He was very honest and said ‘you could lose the movement in your wrist completely and you may not be able to play’.
“So it was a massive risk.”
The emotional toll from the incident in 2017 and long-term recovery would later help inspire some of the tracks in Pippa’s new album, Undercurrents.
She said: “It was a few weeks after the operation when I could move my fingers, I had numbness and I didn’t know if that would go away.
“That was in December 2019, then we went straight into lockdown, and that inspired most of this album.
“I couldn’t play for three months, I couldn’t drive, and then I started seeing the physio who said for me the best physio for me was just playing the harp.
“So I started gigging slowly again. My mum plays the violin so she came along to support me just in case it was a disaster and I couldn’t play properly and she could just play and cover if needed, but thankfully it never came to that.”
During her recovery she approached composers Philip Glass, Max Richter and Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres who all immediately agreed to let her include their works on her album.
“I’m so grateful,” she said, “Their music helped me through. Perhaps unsurprisingly the writing for the album is also inspired not just by my experiences of almost losing my career, but water too.
“I don’t surf anymore, I can’t risk it, but I do wild swim and nature helped me through. Both physically and emotionally.
“I simply cannot thank Dr McGraw and everyone else involved enough. This album only happened because of their skill and belief that mine was a musical career worth saving.”
Dr McGraw said: “It’s wonderful to learn that Pippa continues to do so well following her wrist ligament reconstruction surgery.
“She unfortunately suffered a rupture of one of the most important ligaments in her wrist.
“The biggest risk of the surgery that she received is stiffness, but without surgery unfortunately most people develop arthritis in their wrist.
“It’s no exaggeration therefore to say her career was really at risk from this injury.
“It’s testament to her own hard work and motivation that she has done so well following the surgery.”
