I saw Jane back for follow-up this past Friday, 3 months after her anterior/posterior reconstruction for flatback (flat back) syndrome years after Harrington Rod scoliosis instrumentation and fusion.
Here she shares a little with a local reporter writing article about physician blogging. In Jane’s visit with me, she told me that she is a “walking billboard” for successful flat back surgery, and is very thankful for her new posture. Take care Jane, and thanks for giving your permission to share our picture together on the blog. Look forward to seeing you back in clinic. Thanks also for helping Page with her article on blogs.
Dr. Lloyd Hey — Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery — http://www.heyclinic.com.
My name is Jane, and I am a patient of Dr. Hey’s who just had surgery a little over 3 months ago. He told me that you are writing an article for Raleigh’s Midtown Magazine and thought I could give you a patients perspective about blogs. Let me first give you a little bit of my history. I was diagnosed with scoliosis about 33 years ago and had surgery to correct it a couple years later. The surgery was horrible to say the least and to this day I still have nightmares about it. The surgery was successful at the time but later I developed something called a "flat back" deformity caused by the original scoliosis surgery. I have felt great until the past 3 years and this is when I decided to see Dr. Hey. He diagnosed me with the flat back deformity and gave me options to try first before we considered surgery. The past couple of years I tried the physical therapy and injections. During this time I read his blog almost daily. I was amazed that a doctor who’s as busy as he is spends all that time writing this blog. I hard for me to put in to words what that blog meant to me. First, it was so educational. Times have changed so much and I found it so interesting to see how they treat scoliosis patients these days. The surgery, and recovery, for it is completely different from what I went through. I especially enjoyed seeing the before and after X-rays that he puts out there. Second, the life changing stories are so inspirational to someone who is suffering daily from back pain. It really gives you some hope. You see so many different cases and learn how their surgery changed their life. Lastly, I think you can learn a lot about the doctor, not only professionally but personally, just from reading his blog. A doctor that takes the time to document all of these incredible stories has to be a special one. You can tell from reading his blog that he really cares for his patients and their families. The amount of success stories he has written about are just incredible. I was able to tell that he was a very successful, well educated, caring doctor that truly wants to help people by improving their quality of life. After my first surgery I didn’t think I could ever get myself to go through back surgery again. By reading his blog over the past several years it has really encouraged me and inspired me. I knew I was going to be in the best of hands from everything I have read. I had the corrective surgery done by Dr. Hey and all the pain I had before is gone. He fixed my flat back and now I have a beautiful posture and shape. I can’t help but look in the mirror every time I go by one. I am so grateful for all the time he spent writing on his blog. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to "go for it" if I wasn’t able to read these amazing stories. I can definitely say that it helped change my life.
Hope this gives you a little patient perspective. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thanks.
Jane