"Hey Dr. Hey!!!" TIMES THREE!! What I seemed to hear a lot in restaurants recently

So last week was yet another great, but very hectic week, which was completed with my daughter’s graduation from high school on Friday.
After the ceremony, we went over to the Carolina Inn, in Chapel Hill, NC — a very quaint and historic Inn and restaurant.
When we approached the hostess check-in spot, I was greeted with a big “Hey, Dr. Hey!!!” with a big hug from one of my former scoliosis patients from several years ago named Kristen.  I had performed revision scoliosis surgery for her when she was 25, and she tells her whole story on my old Blog-site, which includes picture of her in Paris!:  http://web.mac.com/drhey/iWeb/Dr%20Hey%27s%20Blog/Blog/C9417E0F-6243-4FB5-B66F-3EE4682812AF.html

My wife, remembering a similar story just recently where the manager at Ruth Chris’ Steakhouse, also a former scoliosis patient of mine gave me this same warm greeting “Hey, Dr. Hey!!”  -- my wife assumed this must be the same young lady who took on a new job at the Carolina Inn.  Nope.  This is a DIFFERENT thankful young lady, former scoliosis patient, who also happens to manage a different restaurant!  (See story: http://drlloydhey.blogspot.com/search?q=steakhouse)

Well it was great to see Kristen again.  She’s looking and feeling great, and excited about her new opportunity at the Carolina Inn.
We did have an absolutely delightful meal there with our large party of family, including both sets of our daughter’s grandparents.  The service and food were excellent, and the price was a great value.  The valet parking was friendly, and included with the cost of our meal!  The UNC campus is just a few feet away, as well as the beautiful Chapel Hill campus.  If you need a nice place to have a special event, or just stay an evening, check out the Carolina Inn and say hello to Kristen at the restaurant.  I assure you, you will get excellent care!  http://www.carolinainn.com.  

Kristen:  we wish you well in your new job! Can we have the Hey Clinic Christmas Party there this year?

I’ve been greeted with “Hey, Dr. Hey!!!” at one other restaurant this past week:  Sanitary Fish Market in Morehead City, NC.  Brittany, one of my adolescent patients yelled out across the restaurant, where she was working at the new coffee bar.  They’ve made a lot of improvements to the restaurant over the winter, including new outside deck seating and Jeff the owner told me how new floating docks are coming in soon, which will be great.  It was great to catch up with Brittany again.  She’s looking and feeling great, and told me how glad she was to get her scoliosis fixed — a real word of encouragement.  You can see Brittany’s blog from last summer at:  http://drlloydhey.blogspot.com/2010/07/seeing-one-of-our-scoliosis-teenagers.html.  By the way: the Sanitary T-Shirts are the best!  Go for the Tie-Died if they have them in stock.  My favorite dish there is the Bluefish, broiled.


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Here is Kristen’s story from the “Old Blog”, which may eventually go away I think — need to check on that with .mac.com!
http://web.mac.com/drhey/iWeb/Dr%20Hey%27s%20Blog/Blog/C9417E0F-6243-4FB5-B66F-3EE4682812AF.html

May 7, 2007

KRISTEN’S YOUNG ADULT “REDO” SCOLIOSIS SURGERY STORY WITH HEY CLINIC, RALEIGH NC — USA

I first found out I had Scoliosis when I was getting a routine physical for track at age 14.  What started out as a 30 degree curve soon progressed to a 49 degree curve by the age of 17.  A month after my 18th birthday and the start of summer vacation before college I had my first corrective surgery. June 15th 2001 would be the beginning of a long journey for me.  My spine was corrected to 20 degrees with the help of one stainless steel rod along with screws and wires.  My ribs were broken and moved in order to protect them from crushing my lungs and to correct cosmetic appearances.  My life proceeded as normal.  I moved to Wilmington, NC and attended college on time and participated in regular activities.  

 February 2005, I was having quite a bit of discomfort and decided to see a local orthopedic doctor since my surgeon was located in South Carolina.    As he came in the room with my x-rays and put them on the wall to show them to me He said, “the two rods look fine”.  As you can imagine the horror that came across my face considering I only had one rod placed against my spine.  The rod had broken clean in half.  As I explained this to the doctor he requested I contact my surgeon immediately.  Needless to say the next day I was on my way to see my doctor in SC.  After a long trip and much panicking he informed me that the fusion was stable and that everything would be fine.

 As much as I wanted to believe my surgeon I felt the need for a second opinion.  I found out about Dr. Hey through a family friend that works in the Duke community.  He ensured me he was the best of the best.  

 June 2005, was my first consultation with Dr. Hey.  He put me at great ease.  He informed me that there was no need to panic, but he would like to keep a close eye on my back and requested I keep a pain log everyday.  If my pain progressed he wanted to know!  I left feeling a great relief knowing that someone cared about my condition and knew the appropriate steps to take.  

 August 2005, I moved to Charlotte, NC to start my new life and a new job.  A fresh college graduate I was ready for anything.  Anything but this.  About 2 weeks into my new job I was on a sales call with my boss, As we were entering an office building I came to a sudden halt.  I knelt to the ground in great pain.  I immediately called Dr Hey.  He directed me to come to Raleigh as soon as possible.  It was a Tuesday, August 23rd.  Dr. Hey showed me my x-rays.  He didn’t have to say a word.  I am not a doctor, but I knew when I saw the staggered placement of the rod I was having surgery.  What I wasn’t ready for was Thursday.  Dr. Hey didn’t hesitate when he said we are having the surgery Thursday the 25th.  I could not believe my ears.  But I knew there was no other choice.

 August 25th, the day of surgery.  I was hungry!! My surgery was at 2:00 in the afternoon, and if you have ever had surgery you know you can’t eat or drink before hand.  Even with my stomach growling Dr. Hey made me and my family feel relaxed.  He took our hands as we stood in pre-op and said a prayer for my family and me.  I will never forget that prayer.  After a long wait my family rushed in to see me and see my new hardware.  I thought all of my surprises were through.  Dr. Hey came into my recovery room, informed me that the surgery was a great success.  He had replaced the broken stainless steel rod with two titanium rods along with 12 screws.  He also informed me the fracture had been stabilized.  Fracture?  What fracture?  Apparently, not only had I broken my rod but I had also broken my spine.  

 It has been almost 2 years since my surgery with Dr Hey and I cannot express enough the endless amounts of gratitude and appreciation I owe Dr Hey and his staff. Dr. Hey is truly a unique doctor.  I am a better person inside and out and he is the reason for both.    



Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
http://www.heyclinic.com
 
 
 
 
 
 

This young lady HAD scoliosis? ... And this past busy week in review.

Wherever I go, I seem to bump into one of our guests from Hey Clinic!  In the past I’ve shared meeting up with one of my former adolescent idopathic scoliosis young lady guests down at Sanitary Fish Market in Morehead City, NC.  Well tonight I met another one who was one of the greeters at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse!  She gave me a big “hello”, and it was great to see her!!!   We got a picture together here at the front desk with a painting of “Ruth” in the background.  This young lady is in college now, and I seriously could not see even a hint of scoliosis!  She gave me permission to share this picture of the two of us taken this evening with all with you, so you can see her good posture!

While we were seated at our table, we were also greeted by a sister of one of my adult scoliosis patients who was kind enough to come over to say “hi” --- she actually helped mentor my daughter this summer in a book publishing company in Chapel Hill.  Really appreciated her help.  Her sister Kate is doing great, who lives up in Connecticut with her husband and small children.  Kate had a severe untreated adolescent idiopathic scoliosis that we fixed when she was in her upper 40’s.

Ryan Kelly, from Duke Basketball team also walked in while we were there --- too bad he was not at the Final 4 as planned!  He sure is tall.

This past week was a real whirlwind.  We did seven surgeries, including three anterior / posterior reconstructions and 2 pedicle subtraction osteotomies for flatback syndrome and severe scoliosis.  Art, our patient from Detroit flew home on Monday morning, after giving me a big hug to thank me for getting rid of his 82 degree kyphosis.  He’s going to be starting a whole new chapter in his life now.  I saw another 9 month old with scoliosis this week, who was a twin, tightly packed into one small corner of the uterus while his other twin hogged up most of the space!  No wonder his spine is twisted!  

Saw a very nice 30 yo woman in clinic on Friday with a HUGE C56 disc herniation which is just making her miserable.  I can relate.  I had the same problem at C67 years ago, and eventually had it fixed surgically.  What a relief that was!  This young lady just moved to Raleigh, is starting a new job, getting a new apartment, and now really can’t use one of her arms, and can’t sleep.  It has been going on for over 5 weeks, and hasn’t gotten any better with conservative therapy.  Tracy in my office helped to rearrange my schedule so we can get that nasty disc off of her C6 nerve root by doing an ACDF anterior cervical discectomy and fusion --- then she can get back to life!  We’ll do a really tiny anterior microsurgery incision for her, with a special plastic surgery closure so that the incision will become virtually invisible on her beautiful neck!  While our clinic is known for doing the “big” scoliosis and kyphosis surgeries, we also enjoy caring for people with the smaller simpler problems as well, knowing what a HUGE difference even a small surgery can make in quality of life.  When I got my C67 disc herniation removed, I will never forget the relief I felt afterward, when that “ice pick” that was in my scapula for a year, and pain going down my left arm was GONE!  Halleluiah!  That experience as a patient, on top of my previous experience as a trauma patient definitely has helped me to put myself in the shoes of my many patients who suffer with symptoms like this in their arms or legs.  

Saw a whole bunch of happy postop patients on Friday, including Bill, who had a T5 fracture with kyphosis and severe myelopathy --- initially could not move his legs at all.  He came back for his one year follow-up yesterday, now able to walk and no significant pain, standing up straight and tall!  What a joy to get a picture together with Bill at the end of an amazing journey.  

Saw a bunch of my teenage scoliosis postop patients doing well, one of whom spent some extra time with Jimmy, our software database engineer, since he is considering being a computer programmer.  Perhaps this high schooler will come back this summer as one of our summer interns.  What a journey.  What a joyful day.

One of my postop flatback correction patients who was 6 months out from surgery told my PA Rachel and I her story how the flatback surgery has totally changed her life.  Her story was so moving that it literally blew me away to the point of tears.  She did a short video clip of her story which I left on my camera at the office this weekend, but she said I could share with our Hey Clinic Blog community....

Rachel has been a huge help with our research projects under way, with abstract submissions in high gear right now on several clinical research projects.  We are also continuing our biomechanical research at NC State with the Mechanical Engineering Department, studying hardware construct modeling in scoliosis surgery --- seeking to come up with ways of preventing hardware failure / breakage.

By Friday evening at 7:30 pm as I headed out to my car after rounding at the hospital, I was “whoop tired”, but thankful for such a great week.

Today I recovered by sleeping a bit late, taking a long walk through the woods with the dogs playing in the streams, and enjoying some time with family and even some “honey do” chores!

Hope you are all doing well...Spring is definitely coming here in NC!

Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery