Last weekend, I got a chance to see my folks and sister and her family up in Pennsylvania, and also see many old friends at my high school reunion up in Long Island - New York. Best part was seeing my old friend Colin, who has really helped fix up my home town as the town attorney.
Well this week we did 8 surgeries – 2 cervical and 6 thoracolumbar.
One was a very complex osteotomy revision case, for a young lady with complex congenital scoliosis and history of anterior fusion with terrible degeneration, collapse and apparent 1 inch leg length descrepency. I did a asymmetric TLIF combined with osteotomies and laminectomies and extension instrumentationa and fusion around her anterior Kineda instrumentation.
She stood up perfectly straight after surgery and walked to the bathroom on her own the day after surgery.
She went home from surgery after 2 nights doing great. Appreciate the help from my SRS colleagues including Sig Berven and Chris Shaffrey who helped out reviewing her films. Big help.
We had a very interesting clinic today, starting off with Janelle, who is 5 year 10 month old with a 100 degree progressive Early Onset Scoliosis (EOS). I met with Janelle and her parents to go over their treatment options, after also getting great input from several SRS members around the country. Thanks so much to Dr. John Emans, Behrooz Akbarnia, Richard McCarthy, Rick Schwend, Jack Flynn who all helped in this complex case. Many thanks also from our Hey Clinic staff and our summer awesome intern Charlotte, who did a great job on the literature review! I was able to assemble a great Powerpoint presentation with the various references and feedback received, combined with description of surgical options which included anterior instrumentation and fusion, posterior osteotomy and fusion, growing rod, and Shilla procedure.
Got a nice hug from our 7 yo patient Olivia who we are treating in a brace for juvenile scoliosis. She really seems to like coming to Hey Clinic, and insisted on this photo today with her mom, and Jenny my PA and I --- she wants to be on our “Wall of Fame” out in our Guest Room where people hang out when they first arrive at Hey Clinic. She is sporting her new Hey Clinic T-Shirt. She gave me a basketball that she drew for me, with her name on it. Last visit she sang us a song a did a dance! Never a dull moment.
Next photo shows me today with one of my 26 yo patients with severe kyphoscoliosis who is actually doing great without surgery!
We also saw Bonnie and her mom for follow-up. I did Bonnie’s scoliosis surgery when she was in her 40’s and she’s doing and lookin’ great now several years later. Her mom is now just 3 months out from surgery and doing great. I remember that she cried big time when I first suggested surgery. It was a tough decision, but her quality of life was really getting bad and she had a bad collapsing degenerative scoliosis with a lot of radiculopathy / leg pain and back pain. What a joy to see the mother-daughter combo smiling together, standing up straight!
We saw one of our college-age adolescent scoliosis patients back from Georgia who is premed. She is looking great! Back to school soon, and someday to be a doctor. Perhaps she’ll join our internship program!
Watched BostonMed with my wife this week. Enjoy this show as it shows the hospitals I trained in for internship, residency, chief residency, etc: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Mass General Hospital (MGH). Usually don’t watch TV, but the aerial shots of Boston are beautiful, and the patient-doctor-nurse stories are quite good and real. When you see the heartache of the surgical team after a multi-trauma child dies, or the joy of the patient and family after a successful cardiac transplant in a teenager, or successful brain surgery tumor removal in a young dad --- you just realize how precious life is, and what a difference caring people can make in the lives of others. I loved the window art the girl who had the cardiac transplant at Children’s made, which said something like “Life is Beautiful!” so that everyone outside could see it. Life indeed is Beautiful and Precious. There was no talk of healthcare reform, just precious individuals finding life and healing and hope.
More later. Gotta get stuff off grill for dinner.
Have a great weekend!
Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
http://www.heyclinic.com
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