What a pleasure it was to see Pat and her family back for follow-up yesterday morning.
Pat had adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, with progression of her curves during her adult years, with increasing pain and deformity.
Her posture looks great, incision looked great, and she is doing extremely well. There were lots of smiles — a great way to start my clinic yesterday morning after doing an urgent surgery yesterday morning! She took some time and showed me her photo book that she created of her “journey” through her scoliosis surgery, before, during and after surgery. Everyone has their “story”, and it is always wonderful to hear it, and in this case “see it” through the many pictures she put together in her book.
She’s obviously used the book to tell her story, since the binding was breaking apart! Pat is planning to write up her story sometime soon, which she wants to share on the blog along with this team picture that she wanted me to share now.
I wrote up a couple earlier blogs on Pat’s surgery and recovery with links here:
http://drlloydhey.blogspot.com/2009/07/pat-from-south-florida-w-her-mom-and-dr.html
http://drlloydhey.blogspot.com/2009/08/skype-message-from-pat-from-southern.html
They made a special trip up to see us yesterday morning using “Net Jets” for her 3 month postop visit, and then flew home direct yesterday afternoon.
She also used “Net Jets” also to fly home for her surgery, which was really very nice. Virtually all of our out of state guests will fly on regular commercial flights, or in some cases drive. We try to minimize the travel for postop visits for our out of state guests also by ordering X-Rays to be completed locally, and then sent to us, and then doing postop visits over the phone, Skype, and/or email. Many families, however, work out ways to come back to visit, while tying it in with other travel to North Carolina to visit our local excellent colleges for high schoolers, visiting our beautiful beaches or mountain areas for family vacations, or visiting other relatives nearby. We can be quite flexible with dates for follow-ups to match travel plans that make more sense for each family.
Pat, thanks for making the special effort to come back and see us. It’s such a blessing to see you doing so well.
Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
http://www.heyclinic.com
Member, Scoliosis Research Society http://www.srs.org — a great source for scoliosis information.