And it shows.

At age 30, Austin looks like he’s in the physical prime of his life. He feels that way too. Still, as good as he feels today is as bad as it was eight years ago, when he was 22 and barely able to walk.

Austin was always an active person. He was a college cheerleader at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. He then enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve. He had also taken up powerlifting, to keep up his physical fitness. One day in 2017 — during a powerlifting competition — he walked up to the barbell, intending to deadlift it.

He dug his heels into the ground, took a deep breath and hinged at the hips, pulling the bar up. However, at the apex of his motion, he stood up too tall, too quickly.

“Whenever I stood up and I overcorrected like that, I knew it,” Austin said. “It all hit me, and I knew something wasn’t right.”

Austin herniated a disc in his lower back, but he wasn’t sure how badly he was injured until the next day, when he started experiencing both bowel and bladder incontinence at work. He went straight to the hospital, where he needed an emergency discectomy.

“There was a lot of pain and a lot of restricted movement,” Austin said. “The doctors removed the disc. They didn’t do a fusion or anything, so I ended up bone-on-bone with my vertebrae. Whenever I was sitting down, getting up, it was catching and causing a lot of pain. I couldn’t really do anything.”

But Austin experienced more than just constant pain.

He got an infection in his spine. He couldn’t move his left leg, and he developed a tremor in his left hand. He spent time in an inpatient rehabilitation facility to clear the infection and learn how to walk again.

“I couldn’t run, couldn’t lift, couldn’t play with my kids,” Austin said. “I was restricted from what I could do.”

‘That’s how I knew I was back’

Austin’s road to true recovery hit another roadblock in 2023.

His pain was come-and-go, and one afternoon he thought he’d get on the trampoline and jump around with his kids. He felt a twinge in his back. He reaggravated his injury.

“It was just one of those things,” he said. “I felt that pain and knew I still wasn’t really right.”

He finally came in contact with Mitchell J. Campbell, M.D., spine surgeon at Norton Leatherman Spine, who talked to Austin about his options. Other doctors had suggested a typical spinal fusion, but Dr. Campbell had other ideas. Austin was still young, and his bones and joints were still in good shape. Dr. Campbell recommended an artificial disc replacement at the lowest two vertebrae of the lumbar spine. The surgery would remove the worn-out disc in Austin’s lower back and replace it with an artificial one, made of a combination of metal and plastic.

“A fusion is analogous to taking a wheel off an 18-wheeler,” Dr. Campbell said. “Something picks up the load. In this case, it’s the other 17 wheels. But with a disc replacement, we’ve now replaced the wheel, keeping the car intact. Now, the spine is going to continue to move as it should, so the wear and tear, or the next-level degenerating, has just been diminished.”

Austin agreed, and in September 2023, Dr. Campbell performed the surgery.

“There was a lot of nervousness,” Austin said. “[Dr. Campbell] explained the risks, and hearing them aloud made me nervous. But he triple-checked and made sure I was OK with them, which helped calm me down and give me the confidence to get through it.”

‘The right operation the right way’

“If you pick the right person and do the right operation the right way, [an artificial disc replacement] is life changing,” Dr. Campbell said. “We have a lot of boxes to check before I say, ‘yes, you’re the right person.’ They have to have good bone quality and fail about a year of conservative treatment. Surgery is one of those bridges that once you cross, you can’t go back. So, we make sure we do our due diligence.”

The first few weeks after surgery were rough.

Austin experienced frequent muscle spasms. He was living with restrictions — no bending, twisting or arching his back. The pain was still there, but he believed he’d turn the corner.

Eventually, the pain subsided, and he was finally able to do things he hadn’t done in years.

“My mom saw me get down and play with my kids on the floor for the first time in a long time,” Austin said. “It [was] everything to me. I hadn’t played with my kids in a long time like that. I couldn’t play tag with them. I couldn’t run and jump and do all those things with them. Being able to go out and chase them around on the playground and play soccer with them and coach my son’s T-ball team. That’s how I knew I was back.”

‘I’m grateful for where I’m at now’

Austin’s recovery has gone so well, he decided to push himself even further. He began to run after surgery and stopped lifting as heavily as he used to. His body responded well. What were once long walks became runs. And as his body continued to respond, he continued to increase his distance.

So much so, that in July 2024 — just 10 months after his surgery with Dr. Campbell — Austin completed the Run Under the Stars, a 12-hour ultramarathon, where runners complete as many miles as possible in a 12-hour span. Austin finished 44 miles, an incredible feat for someone who, a few years prior, thought he may never walk again.

Yet he wasn’t finished.

Austin’s body has continued to respond, and he’s continued to push himself. He’s now training for November’s Fall Creek 100, a 100-mile event in Tennessee. It’s the last step to prove to himself that he’s fully back to the way he used to be before his injury.

“I’m grateful for my kids and everything that I have now,” Austin said. “So while I don’t give it too much thought, life could’ve looked significantly different. It’s peaceful for me, and it’s good to know I can do it.”

“You take someone who can’t walk, or has bad spinal narrowing, and you bring them back to somewhat normalcy, and it’s a feeling that’s hard to describe,” Dr. Campbell said. “Someone with chronic pain, people who say to themselves, ‘I can’t live like this,’ that’s what we do this for.”

The post Months after artificial disc surgery, Kentucky man completes ultramarathon appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

“We’ve got the map of [the] U.S., and we’ve probably got 50% of it done,” Charlie said. “We have it in our bedroom as a reminder of all the places we’ve been together, and the places we still have yet to visit.”

Their traveling traditions started decades ago. Charlie spent more than 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, serving at air bases not just across the country, but also in Okinawa, Japan, and in Iceland. When Charlie retired in 1993, he and Debbie set out to accomplish their goal of visiting all 50 states.

With about 30 crossed off the list, the couple set their sights on South Dakota: the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. The iconic American landmark carved into the Black Hills is something Charlie always dreamed of visiting. But the retired airman’s chance to see the granite sculpture had one major hurdle to clear.

Charlie started having back pain years ago. It slowly — but surely — limited him. By the time summer 2024 rolled around, it was unbearable.

“[I was] on a walker, guaranteed, and not walking very much at all,” Charlie said. “I probably could do enough steps to walk to get something to eat and go back to the chair or lie down. That’s it. Flat on my back is where I lived.”

It took a toll on Debbie too, who assumed the role of full-time caregiver. She tended to Charlie during his bad days — helping him get up and get around the house, all the while keeping track of his pain medication schedule.

“Any time you watch a loved one degenerate, it’s painful,” she said. “You watch it, and you try to be their cheerleader, and you try to say, ‘This too shall pass.’ But it is very difficult. And it was difficult for me to not get depressed as well. But I just kept trying to say, ‘We’re going to get through this. We just have to keep trying.’” 

‘Fix it at all costs’

Charlie’s pain worsened to the point of no return. He knew he needed a permanent fix.

In fall 2024, he visited Charles H. Crawford III, M.D., orthopedic spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine.

Dr. Crawford diagnosed Charlie with several issues. Most notably, he had degenerative scoliosis and spinal arthritis, also known as spondylosis. He also was experiencing multilevel stenosis, or narrowing of the space between the vertebrae. The nerves near the bottom of Charlie’s spinal cord were being compressed, causing pain, numbness and difficulty walking. Lastly, Charlie was diagnosed with thoracic myelopathy, or compression of the spinal cord in the thoracic (mid-back) part of the spine.

In short, Charlie needed help — fast. Dr. Crawford recommended surgery.

“Charlie and his wife are such incredibly kind people,” Dr. Crawford said. “He had a really debilitating issue that was progressively getting worse. And I knew it would require a big surgery to help him. And these bigger, more complex surgeries require a big team — before, during and after. So we wanted to make sure we crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s and got him ready for surgery.”

“When I heard what I needed, I said to Dr. Crawford, ‘If you can fix it, fix it at all costs,’” Charlie said. “I was just at that point.”

In November 2024, Dr. Crawford performed a successful two-day, two-part spinal fusion, correcting Charlie’s scoliosis, decompressing his spine and relieving his excruciating pain.

“We removed some of the lamina bone, the back of the spine, that was pinching the nerves,” Dr. Crawford said. “We also removed parts of some discs. From there, we began rebuilding the spine. It’s like a building that’s collapsing. We need to rebuild and realign the structure. So, we used screws and rods to straighten the spine and hold it in its normal, anatomical position. That way, when Charlie — or any other patient — stands up, his spine is no longer collapsing and putting pressure on the nerves, but it stays in its good position.”

‘It gave us our life back’

Charlie progressed quickly. After a few months with a walker, some medication for residual pain and a few restrictions, he was back on two feet for good.

“I’ll tell you, I couldn’t really walk,” Charlie said. “Before surgery, I needed a walker to get around; I was bent over. I just couldn’t do it. And after surgery, I got rid of my walker very quickly and started getting back to my life.”

Now it was time to pull out that U.S. map and reset their sights on their destination — Mount Rushmore. The Hinckleys rebooked their trip, and in May 2025 finally got to cross South Dakota off their list.

“At Mount Rushmore, they’ve got 422 stairs on the Presidential Trail,” Charlie said. “That stopped me in my tracks, and I was like, ‘Might as well see if I can do it.’ And we had already decided that if I couldn’t do it, [we would] turn around and walk back the way we came. I ended up doing it, feeling great about the whole thing — and that’s when I decided surgery was over. Mentally, I had cleared the hurdle.”

Now, almost 60 days since their trip, Charlie’s back continues to respond well. He and Debbie continue to be active. The two walk roughly 10,000 steps a day and already have the next trip planned. They both know their travels, for a while, seemed like they’d be stopped in their tracks. But thanks to the right surgeon and the right procedure, their future is brighter than ever.

“The way I describe it is that it gave us our life back,” Charlie said. “I was extremely depressed, and at one point I came to the conclusion that even if something bad happened to me, I’d prefer to be with the Lord than the way that I was going with my back. And I have told many, many people, if they’re going to have back surgery, they need to go to this man.”

“It’s one of the best parts of my job, seeing our patients after surgery and seeing how much their function improves, their quality of life improves,” Dr. Crawford said. “We try to quantify these things, but sometimes just seeing the smile and getting the hug from the patient is worth more than anything.”

The post Months after two-day spine surgery, Air Force veteran visits Mount Rushmore appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

“I was 19, a sophomore in college,” Susan said. “I started having pain in my hip and couldn’t figure out what was causing it.”

She bounced from doctor to doctor, looking for answers. Several months later, her right leg was paralyzed. She needed a MRI, which confirmed she’d ruptured a disc in her lower back. It was compressing her nerve roots, and she needed to have surgery immediately.

“[The doctor] said, ‘I don’t want to fuse your spine; you’re too young,” Susan said. “But he also told me, ‘this won’t be your only surgery.’”

The recovery was arduous. She was directed to stand up straight or lie flat on her back for 30 days. From then on, she battled chronic daily pain, derived from a combination of arthritis and spondylolisthesis, a condition when one vertebra slips in front of the other.

“It wasn’t severe most of the time, but I always knew it was there,” she said. “And as I got older, it started getting worse and worse. And I usually had one to two bad weeks per year, but I always dealt with it.”

In 2015, the pain became insufferable.

She couldn’t perform daily tasks, like bending down to tie her shoes. She went to see Jeffrey L. Gum, M.D., orthopedic spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine, who — in June of that year — performed a successful lumbar fusion of Susan’s L4 and L5 vertebrae.

During the nearly three-hour, “open-technique” surgery, Dr. Gum made a roughly 6-inch incision in Susan’s back and removed bone spurs and disc fragments that were pressing on her nerve roots. Then, he took pieces of bone from Smith’s hip and placed them between vertebrae in her spine, then fused the bones together using screws and rods. She spent three nights in the hospital and started her recovery, which compared to her first surgery, was night and day.

“When I went home, it was no lifting, bending or twisting,” Susan said. “But Dr. Gum told me to live my life and we’ll check in in 30 days.”

But she didn’t even need that long. After just two weeks, she was cleared to return to work.

“I have not had pain since the day of my surgery,” Susan said. “Everyone tweaks their back every now and then, but I have not had back pain for almost nine years.”

‘Like daughter, like mother’

Sharry Waldeck has a theory.

She believes her back pain is derived from the day she fell off a horse when she was 10 years old. Though the riding accident didn’t impact her severely at the time, she’s had some back pain from then on.

Fast forward roughly 60 years, and that pain began to worsen.

“Probably for the [last] two years, I have had quite a bit of pain that last year became intense,” Sharry said. “And the last few months was to the point that I could hardly do my household chores or get dressed.”

Luckily for Sharry, her daughter Susan had some experience and knew who to call.

In 2023, Susan connected her mother with Dr. Gum, who diagnosed Sharry with the exact same conditions — spondylolisthesis and arthritis. Sharry also was dealing with slight scoliosis, or sideways curving of the spine. She needed surgery to correct it.

“She had a lot of voices telling her it might not go great,” Susan said. “And I knew better. And I knew Dr. Gum would never have suggested surgery if he didn’t think he could improve her quality of life. So my role in all of it was to counteract the negative [stigma] around back surgery.”

In November, Dr. Gum performed the same surgery on Sharry as he did on Susan — a lumbar fusion of the L4 and L5 vertebrae. And while the premise of the surgeries was the same, Dr. Gum was able to perform Sharry’s procedure as minimally-invasive surgery, with the help of a robot.

The robot — called the Mazor X Stealth Edition— helps expedite surgery time and get patients into the recovery room quicker. It uses imaging software and GPS capabilities to help surgeons map out a plan before surgery, increasing the accuracy of screw placement and improving the overall efficiency of the surgery. Because the robot guides the screws, the size of the patient’s incision decreases to less than 2 inches. Even more, the new surgical technique also affects how surgeons manage pain. Dr. Gum used a preoperative nerve block, helping reduce the need for opioids to manage pain post-surgery.

“I love it,” Dr. Gum said. “I always want new technology that can help us do things better, and I love proving that it adds value to our specialty. For me, it’s like seeing what’s not just available now, but what can be available in two years, five years or 10 years; that’s what gets me excited about what I do. When you decide to go into a surgical specialty, you’ve checked the box of being a lifelong learner and always being receptive to new technology or new techniques. So I think it’s one of the most exciting things we get to do.”

Sherry’s recovery was just as advertised.

Just hours after surgery, she was sitting in a chair and had already walked the hospital floor without issues. After an evaluation from Dr. Gum, she was cleared to go home. So, Susan helped her mother get dressed and walked her out of the hospital that same night.

“It is truly amazing to see,” Susan said of her mother. “I was waiting to go back to recovery, and it was taking pretty long. And finally they came out and said, ‘She wants to go home.’ It’s crazy to think here I was 30 years younger and in the hospital for three nights, very long incision, with drains and ports and the whole bit,” Susan said. “And here she is, 30 years older, with no hospital stay. And I only stayed with her one night, and that was it.”

‘I get goosebumps talking about it’

Now five months after surgery, Sharry is back to normal, living her life without restrictions. Susan is still doing well too, eight years after her procedure.

They compare scars from time to time and have the usual mother-daughter discussions about their procedures. But, they don’t give too much thought to the gravity of it all, until you ask.

“When I had mine done, I knew it was going to be better than my first surgery 20 years before that, but I didn’t appreciate the difference in the two,” Susan said. “To go from my first surgery to what I had done [in 2015] is amazing. But that was 20 years, and so it makes sense. But then to think, ‘Oh, in nine more years there’s going to be a robot that’s going to do this surgery, and you’re going to have this tiny incision and you’re not going to have to stay in the hospital, that didn’t cross my mind. And I definitely didn’t think [the example] would be my own mom.”

The same can’t be said for Dr. Gum, who continues to push the limits of what is technologically possible, while looking ahead to what the next advancement might be, and how that may make patients’ lives even better.

“I almost get goosebumps talking about that,” Dr. Gum said. “Every day you enter that operating room, you need to understand how you can do better the next time you go in. And so part of that learning or critique process is asking yourself, ‘Why are we doing it this way?’ If there are techniques to do it better, we need to learn those techniques. So to me, every day is an evolution of how I look at the [operating room]. I want to walk out of there learning something new or better. And when you take a step back and put it all together, I think it’s beautiful and awesome that we’re seeing robots in the OR. There’s all this new technology that’s evolving that’s going to make it easier and safer for what we do.”

The post Mother-daughter duo gets same spine surgery from same Norton Leatherman Spine surgeon appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

It was Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. Mike was only six months removed from major spine surgery in his lower back.

Yet, here he was again, sitting in the office of Kathryn J. McCarthy Mullooly, M.D., on the Norton Healthcare ­– St. Matthews campus facing a different, yet equally life-changing injury. Dr. McCarthy, spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine, pulled up Mike’s MRI. It showed severe cervical stenosis, or spinal compression, in his neck. The condition, if aggravated, could leave Mike paralyzed.

“[The doctor] pulls up my MRI,” Mike said. “And as soon as she pulled it up, I looked at it and I thought, ‘That doesn’t look good.’ Then she asked me, ‘Can you do surgery Friday?’”

“It was a ‘don’t pass go; don’t collect $200’” situation, Dr. McCarthy said. “We needed to move forward with a decision-making matrix to address this, because you’re at risk for much more dire issues.”

Mike learned he needed an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. Just hearing those words, Mike broke down into tears.

The competitive mountain bike racer thought about what he had just been through over the past few months, and the possibility of losing his active lifestyle for good. He knew he needed the surgery, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for his second one since April.

Then, one day later, the spine surgeon offered Mike a lifeline.

“She messaged me like, ‘Hey, you left the office yesterday before I had a chance to reach back out to you,’” Mike said. “‘I have another patient who was here for a four-week checkup. Would it be OK if I passed her information along?’”

Dr. McCarthy had spine patient Wendy Matus’ permission to share her email address with Mike. He sent Wendy a message, and a few hours later, his phone rang. It was Wendy.

Reaching out would lead to a heartwarming connection between the two spine patients. But first, a bit about Mike’s story:

‘That was the worst five weeks of my life’

For Mike, it all started with a dull ache in March 2023.

He was training for his next mountain bike race near his home in Asheville, North Carolina, when he felt the ache start to creep down his hip flexor and into his left leg.

“I wasn’t alarmed at all,” said Mike, who also has a residence in Louisville. “I thought I needed maybe a couple extra days of recovery, a chiropractor, a massage, but [the pain] never went away.”

He tried to ride again, but an hour in, he felt the pain again. In tune with his body, he got off the bike, went home and took a shower.

Then it happened.

“It was like the flip of a switch,” he said. “I’ve never felt pain like this before in my life, ever. It’s the most traumatic thing I’ve ever been through.”

The dull ache morphed into hand-shaking pain. Mike barely made it from the shower to his bed, called 911 and was taken to the hospital. Doctors mandated four days of bed rest and pain medication. It didn’t work, and the pain came back almost instantly. He went for a MRI, which confirmed a far lateral herniated disc in his lower back. Five weeks and a few epidural shots later, Mike was back in the hospital with the same excruciating pain. His herniation had gotten worse.

“That was the worst five weeks of my life … ever,” Mike said. “I get it when people say they can’t live this way. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sit in a chair. I couldn’t walk. … I was a mess. I didn’t know if this was ever going to go away, if I was ever going to be able to ride a bike again. I didn’t know. Everything was a big question mark.”

He got a referral to Dr. McCarthy in Louisville, and on April 12, she performed a successful far lateral discectomy, relieving the herniation in his back.

“He came at a time when he was really limited, and he was markedly debilitated,” Dr. McCarthy said. “He had tried everything else, and it was time to make a decision about what the next step was, and he was ready. He was frightened and concerned, but he did great.”

Mike’s improvement began the second he woke up from surgery. He could walk and sit down without pain. Eventually, after a few weeks, he began to train again. In the middle of the summer, he was out on a ride at DuPont State Recreational Forest in North Carolina.

Then the dull ache started again. This time, he felt it down his right arm.

He cut his ride short, thinking, “everything’s going to be different,” he said. “And I go out for a ride the next day, and it’s the same pain.”

He scheduled another appointment with Dr. McCarthy and, in the meantime, tried to change his lifestyle. He attended physical therapy sessions and moved his training rides indoors. There was improvement, enough for Mike to believe he was headed in the right direction.

But when he sat in the spine surgeon’s office in Louisville in October, that positive feeling quickly faded.

Meanwhile, Wendy had been on a somewhat similar health journey.

‘I was a little traumatized’

It was July 2022. Wendy had just moved from Chicago, Illinois, to Louisville for work.

The avid CrossFit athlete and exerciser was alone, trying to find her footing in a new city. Two weeks after her move, she had pain in her neck. It was so bad, she couldn’t move without agony. Muscle relaxers didn’t work. At one point, she didn’t sleep for three days. She visited several doctors before an innocent touch helped decipher what was happening.

“One of my doctors put her hand on my back, and my whole arm went numb,” Wendy said. “And that’s when she said, ‘Oh, that’s a spine issue.’”

From there, she was referred to Dr. McCarthy, who diagnosed her with a herniated disc in her neck.

“I was a little traumatized, because I had just broken my leg in two places the year prior,” Wendy said. “So I just felt like my body was falling apart.”

Wendy opted for physical therapy, which she did for roughly six to eight months. She saw slight improvement but never could get physically back to where she was before. The workouts seemed harder, and the soreness lasted longer.

“I would try to go to the gym, and everything would feel so off for like days afterwards,” Wendy said. “So it was just that I didn’t get back to where I wanted to be. All my ability to be really active felt like it was taken away.”

She needed a more permanent fix. Wendy returned to Norton Leatherman Spine in September 2023 and agreed to have surgery. On Sept. 14, Dr. McCarthy performed a successful anterior cervical discectomy and fusion.

Four weeks later, Wendy was back in her office feeling like a new woman.

‘We had so many different things in common’

When Wendy called Mike, two days before his neck surgery, she expected simply to help him through the pre-surgical process — answer some questions and point him in the right direction. The conversation was going well. They had talked for about 20 minutes, before Mike asked an interesting question.

“We’re talking, and everything she said made me feel a lot better [about surgery],” Mike said. And I thought, ‘Hey, what are you doing? Do you want to go for a hike?’”

A bit shocked, she said yes.

“The whole time, I was sitting there like, ‘I don’t even know who this guy is; I’m just trying to help him out.’ But admittedly, now I’m Googling and trying to figure out who he is. And it’s funny, because when I got out of my car, when we both got out of our cars and then we looked at each other, in my head I thought, ‘She totally set me up on a date.’”

The connection was instant. Wendy and Mike met for a hike at Cherokee Park and finished the entire loop. Then they went for a sushi dinner and a walk around the Highlands neighborhood. Before they knew it, they had been together almost eight hours.

“We saw that we had so many different things in common,” Wendy said. “And there was one point where I was in front of him [on the hiking trail] and we were both talking about how grateful we were. I’ve had two major surgeries. He’s about to have a second major surgery, but yet we’re both upright and still able to do the things we love to do. And he said something along the lines of, ‘It’s a beautiful day; I’m with a beautiful woman.’

“And that’s when I knew.”

They spent the next day at the Louisville Zoo together, building on the foundation they created the day before. With the surgery scheduled the following morning, Mike asked Wendy to stay with him in his Louisville home while he recovered. She agreed again.

“It was a pay-it-forward kind of thing,” Wendy said. “I think there’s a part of me that’s a natural caregiver type. But, it was great. I feel like he and I have such similar outlooks on things and are grounded in a similar way, that even though we knew each other for three days and it might seem insane that I would come and take care of him, it didn’t feel weird at all.”

Mike’s surgery was a success, and he recovered at his Louisville home with Wendy as a caregiver for about a week. After that, they packed their bags and went to Mike’s home in Asheville for a hike in the mountains. They snapped a selfie, and Mike sent it to their medical matchmaker. The accompanying message read:

“From crying in your office to this. You are quite the magician … Thank you!! For everything.”

“Clearly something clicked between the two of them,” Dr. McCarthy said. “They’re both incredibly spirited people. I’m thrilled that they’ve had great outcomes from surgery, first and foremost. I’m thrilled that they found each other too.”

Now, roughly four months later, Mike and Wendy continue to build on their relationship, enjoying more adventures together. They’ve begun planning for a future together, feeling lucky to have been connected by their surgeon’s serendipity.

“I’ve never been with somebody who communicates as well as him,” Wendy said. “Plus we spent a lot of time together in the beginning, so that accelerates things. So the level we’ve been able to communicate with each other, I feel like has helped us feel more comfortable and connected to each other. And, to us, it makes sense we can make plans for the future and not feel like it’s a gamble.”

“For any person who does what we do, the measure of success isn’t necessarily how many surgeries you do,” Dr. McCarthy said. “It’s this. Can you help somebody through a frightening situation and get them to the other side? In my heart it’s the greatest thing that you can see to affirm what you’re doing is impactful.”

The post Norton Leatherman Spine surgeon plays unintentional matchmaker for patients appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

“I want to have kids someday,” Hanna said, explaining her motivation for daily exercise and a healthy lifestyle. “And I want to have a family and this is the only way I’m going to be able to get going.”

Walking miles around her neighborhood was something Hanna couldn’t do just months ago. Back in October, she experienced crippling back pain and barely was able to stand, let alone walk. The pain was radiating from her lower back, down her legs and into her knees.

In January, the pain was so bad that Hanna took herself to the emergency room.

She ended up hospitalized for a few days, received pain pills and steroid shots and was discharged. Hanna looked for other doctors, and eventually found one who agreed to operate on her. Then, disappointment: The day before the scheduled surgery, it was canceled due to a  doctor’s family emergency. Disappointment turned to frustration when Hanna was referred to yet another doctor — who was out on maternity leave and would not be able to see Hanna for months.

Now Hanna was in pain and feeling like she was running out of options before she received a referral to Mahan Ghiassi, M.D., spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine.

“Her story was a classic case of nerve root compression,” Dr. Ghiassi said. “She had debilitating pain where she wasn’t able to do normal, daily activities; even walking was a problem for her. And when we assessed her MRI scan, she had a very large herniated disc that was impinging her nerve root going down to her left leg. Given the severity of symptoms, given the duration and given that she’d already tried some conservative measures, we decided to proceed with the minimally invasive procedure.”

On May 2, less than two weeks after Hanna’s first visit with Dr. Ghiassi, he performed a minimally invasive discectomy at Hanna’s L4/L5 vertebrae. In this procedure, a small incision is made, and the surgeon uses a tube to remove part of the damaged disc. This eases the pressure on the spinal cord. Dr. Ghiassi also performed a hemilaminectomy at Hanna’s L4 vertebrae, shaving down the bone to further reduce the spinal compression.

“When you spend so much time training, to be able to help someone go from a situation where they’re unable to do basic daily activity, and doing an operation that’s delicate, effective and getting them back to their normal living and activity, there’s no better reward than that,” Dr. Ghiassi said.

Minimally invasive spine surgeries have become more popular in recent years, because they can be equally as effective as open surgeries while coming with less down time, reduced blood loss and fewer complications. The procedures also can help patients recover dramatically faster.

According to a 2022 article from World Neurology, in 2010 about 15% of spine surgeries were considered minimally invasive. Now, estimates exceed 75%. As the population over 65 increases, there is expected to be an increasing need for spine surgery.

“Minimally invasive spine surgery is certainly collecting steam as far as more practitioners providing it because there is more training happening at the residency level,” Dr. Ghiassi said. “So as more trainees are coming out of the spine surgery programs that are qualified to do this, I think it’ll be more prevalent in the community.”

Hanna’s surgery was an immediate success. She was pain-free while still in her hospital bed and was discharged to go home on the same day as her surgery.

“At first I thought there was no way in heck, but I prayed to God every day, and I knew if [Dr. Ghiassi] did surgery on me, I was going to be able to walk,” Hanna said. “As soon as I stood up … the pain in my hip and in my knees was gone. It was instant.”

With her back issues behind her, Hanna now set her sights forward, hoping to accomplish her goal of starting a family. That’s when she began to walk, and the results began to show. At her follow-up appointment three weeks after surgery, she already was down 8 pounds.

Now, nearly two months later, she’s lost 15 pounds and is well on her way to accomplishing her goal. She’s focused on keeping the weight off for a year before she and her husband try for their first child.

“If it wasn’t for [Dr. Ghiassi] and his amazing staff, I wouldn’t be here today,” Hanna said. “I can’t wait to have a family. Next May — I’m counting down.”

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She was in her 60s at the time and missed bowling, skiing and dancing. In fact, she got to the point that walking anywhere was a problem.

“I thought I was destined to live with the increasing pain for the rest of my life,” Joanne said.

When she moved to Kentucky in 2022, her new health care provider sent her to Kathryn J. McCarthy Mullooly, M.D., an orthopedic spine surgeon at Norton Leatherman Spine. With one look at an MRI and an X-ray, Dr. McCarthy saw the issue was spondylolisthesis: One of the vertebrae in Joanne’s spine had moved out of place and was sliding over the one below it.

“This issue can cause the vertebrae to put pressure on the nerves, resulting in various levels of pain,” Dr. McCarthy said. “It also can cause weakness in the legs. When physical therapy and exercise, anti-inflammatory medication and steroid injections do not work, or when there is increasing pain and weakness, surgery may be an option.”

Now 73, Joanne’s age, osteoporosis and increasing pain and weakness were making surgery a more attractive option. The procedure would fuse two of her discs and build up the damaged area with a synthetic protein that Norton Leatherman Spine surgeons Steven D. Glassman, M.D., and John R. Dimar II, M.D., helped study in clinical research trials years ago.

“The goal was to stabilize Joanne’s spine and accelerate bone growth to help build up the area,” Dr. McCarthy said. “And what made her surgery unique is that we could do it in a minimally invasive way.”

The surgery left Joanne with only two scars about 2 inches long on either side of her spine.

“My recovery was incredible,” Joanne said. “I started with pain that passed 10 [on a scale of 1 to 10], and now I’m down to 3 or less, which was the goal.

“I was up and walking a few hours after surgery. Norton Women’s & Children’s Hospital took very good care of me. The nursing staff was just wonderful.” Just a few months after the procedure, Joanne is back to walking around the block and looks forward to dancing with her husband soon.

The post After looking in Boston, woman finds back pain relief in Louisville appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

It started on the football field, after he experienced an injury in his neck that eventually required disc replacement surgery. That moment led him into the field of chiropractic medicine, helping his patients navigate their own spinal issues throughout his career.

In his early years, David also pursued a bodybuilding career, participating in competitions nationwide throughout the 1980s. During that time, he finished first in the Nevada state championship and the North American championships. He’s also competed in several triathlons and marathons, priding himself on staying in shape as he ages.

But in December 2021, at age 60, the retired chiropractor needed some spinal help of his own. He was in the middle of a round of golf when the pain forced him off the course.

“It’s like a psychology student trying to figure out their head, right?” David said. “A chiropractor goes and tries to figure out his spine.”

The pain became unbearable, and after exhausting all conservative options, David began looking for a surgeon who could put him back together permanently.

At this point in his life, he already had undergone two spinal surgeries — his prior disc replacement and a microdiscectomy in his lower back. The third surgery would be his most intense. He needed the right doctor. Eventually, he connected with Kirk Owens II, M.D., orthopedic spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine.

Discussing options

After several conversations, the spine surgeon and chiropractor agreed on surgery.

“I found Dr. Owens, and we hit it off,” David said. “He showed a lot of respect for me as a patient and a professional. I liked the way he suggested things. And as soon as I made a decision, it was like a big relief. I think the dark moment went away. I was like, ‘OK, so now I have a plan. I’ve got a guy who I trust, and we’re going for it.’”

Dr. Owens diagnosed David with spondylolisthesis, or instability of the spine, causing one vertebra to slip forward in front of the other, pinching the nerves in the back and causing sciatic pain. David also was experiencing spinal stenosis, thanks to a cyst growing into his spinal canal.

In February 2022, Dr. Owens performed a minimally invasive TLIF surgery, short for transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion, fusing David’s L4 and L5 vertebrae.

“The biggest discussion that we had before surgery was really which levels to do, how many levels to do,” Dr. Owens said. “In his instance, what I tried to do was tailor the procedure to what I thought he needed. You could easily have looked at his MRI and his X-rays and said, ‘you need a fusion from L3 to S1,’ but listening to him, understanding his symptoms, I thought that L4 to L5 was causing most of his symptoms.”

Dramatic results

The results were dramatic. David was nearly pain-free in a matter of weeks and quickly started his rehabilitation schedule. First, he walked laps around the track at his gym. At the three-month post-surgery mark, he began lifting 15-pound kettlebells and increased his workload as the months progressed.

As chance would have it, David eventually found himself back onstage again.

In January, 10 months after his operation, he was named a finalist in a corporate challenge for people who make a healthy transformation in their lives. He was awarded a trip to Dallas, Texas, for the event, a cash prize and a professional photo shoot to show off his progress,

It was a chance for him to prove both to himself and others that a healthy lifestyle is attainable and sustainable after a major surgery.

“I’m not slowing down,” he said. “[Surgery] is a big choice, because through your spine, that’s where your life force runs. And anything that affects that, affects your life — your limbs, your body, your strength. It’s like cutting a wire on any kind of appliance. Until you fix the wire, the motor’s not going to run right.”

The post Bodybuilding chiropractor back to training after successful spinal surgery appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

“The surgeon pulled it up on the screen, and it was literally an ‘S,’” Jennifer said. “I knew I had some curvature, I just didn’t understand [how much], and I never really thought about it. But looking at the screen, it literally looked like a snake was my spine, and I was shocked.”

Jennifer, now 50, had been living with severe scoliosis since she was a child. It was never corrected, but it never stopped her from living an active life. That is, until about five years ago when her back pain became a daily dose of aggravation. Doctors recommended surgery then, but she put it off and began to travel. Eventually, she landed in Lucca, a city in central Italy, lush with hills and walking trails. There, she fell in love with multiday, long-distance walks.

But, the walks did not come without consequences.

Jennifer’s scoliosis continued to cause pain, and she knew it was time to return to the U.S. and see a doctor. She and her husband moved to Louisville, and a family friend recommended Charles H. Crawford III, M.D., orthopedic spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine.

“Norton Leatherman Spine has a more than 50-year history of being a world-renowned, leading spine center,” Dr. Crawford said. “I’m fortunate to work with my partners and in a facility that is widely recognized as one of the leading spine surgery centers in the world. The many decades of research and experience with training future spine surgeons ensures that we are providing the best spine surgery care possible.”

After three visits, several rounds of discussions and hours of research, Jennifer decided to have surgery on January 7, 2022.

“If I want to keep up with that lifestyle, I’m going to have to do something,” Jennifer said. “That was the decision point. He told me that I could get back to my life, and I trusted him — and I didn’t think about it again.”

Jennifer needed two incisions, one in the top and one in the bottom of her back. Her surgery lasted more than six hours, requiring four rods, eight hooks and 26 screws to straighten her spine and correct her scoliosis.

She walked out of surgery full of metal, but was pain-free in weeks.

“I’m not going to say there weren’t some dark days, some dark hours,” Jennifer said. “But the pain was not there even after coming off of pain medicines, and I knew, at that point, that this was absolutely going to be the best life that I could have.”

Back to the trails

At Jennifer’s three-month postoperative checkup, Dr. Crawford medically cleared her to restart her walks, and she immediately took advantage. She and her husband flew out West to hike the national parks. Then, they flew to Mexico to hike Chichén Itzá. She came out of the trips unscathed, and continued to push her body’s boundaries.

In September 2022, Jennifer and her husband completed their longest walk yet, a 100-mile hike along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.

“There were some challenging days,” Jennifer said. “You know your mileage for the day, mentally how far you’re going that day. But there are things off the trail — museums, Roman sites — and we didn’t want to miss a thing. So a 17-mile day ended up at 21 miles. It wears on you mentally, but physically it was nothing.”

Treating the whole patient

Jennifer credits her success to Dr. Crawford, who not only performed a successful surgery, but guided her through the process in a way that allowed her to feel comfortable.

“I knew the surgery was great; I was fixed,” she said. “[Dr. Crawford] has a good read on patients, and he read me the minute I walked in there. He knew I needed more information, and it was going to take some time, and he gave me both.”

“Changing somebody’s life like this is a big responsibility,” Dr. Crawford said. “When you see a patient like Jennifer who’s done so well and has really benefited from your knowledge and skills, it’s a huge reward and reminds us all why we became doctors in the first place.”

Now, Jennifer and her husband have more hikes planned. They plan to walk Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland, and eventually work their way up to travel the Via Francigena, a 1,000-mile trail from Canterbury, England, to Apulia, Italy.

It’s a journey that five years ago may have been impossible, but now seems like a walk in the park. “Decide where you want to be later on, and talk to a surgeon about what you need to do now to get there,” Jennifer said. “It’s not a decision you can make on your own or read on the internet and decide; it really takes the professionalism of a team like Dr. Crawford’s to walk you through what the surgery looks like and walk you through how you get back to your own life.”

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The first step is diagnosis. Your health care provider typically can get all the necessary information from a physical examination.

“We look at your ability to stand, sit down and walk,” said Kathryn J. McCarthy, M.D., spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine. “We might check your reflexes and strength. In some cases, we might need to dig deeper with other tests like an X-ray.”

Treating back pain without surgery

Once the general cause of your back pain is determined, there are many nonsurgical options, including:

• Medication: This could be a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) such as ibuprofen or naproxen, or muscle relaxants.
• Heat and ice therapy: Ice packs, warm compresses and heating pads also may relieve discomfort.
• Exercise and physical therapy: These methods can increase flexibility, strengthen the muscles of the core and back, and improve posture. You can learn to avoid triggering back pain by correctly performing exercises without overworking the muscles.
• Complementary therapies: These treatments include massage, acupuncture and meditation, and have been shown to improve symptoms.

Back surgery to treat chronic back pain

“Sometimes we try all the nonsurgical options, and there is still no relief,” Dr. McCarthy said. “When those methods have been exhausted, it might be time to discuss surgical interventions.”

You should spend time talking to your health care provider about what might be the best course of treatment for you and your specific type of chronic back pain.

The post Chronic neck and back pain appeared first on Norton Healthcare.

“One-sided back pain is fairly common,” said Kimathi W. Doss , M.D., neurosurgeon and spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine .

Causes of lower right back pain

Minor tissue injuries, including muscle strain, can cause lower back pain, tenderness, swelling or a muscle spasm. These types of injury typically feel better with rest, with application of ice or with over-the-counter pain relievers such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen.

A spine injury or lower back conditions such as herniated discs , osteoarthritis , spondylolisthesis , spinal stenosis or another abnormality of the spine can cause lower right back pain.

Chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia or myofascial pain syndrome can cause pain in many parts of the body such as the lower back.

Underlying conditions including appendicitis, gallbladder inflammation, kidney infection, tumor, liver issues, pelvic inflammatory disease or urinary tract infection also also can be lower back pain causes.

When to see a doctor for pain on the lower right side of the back

“Lower back pain is common, and we will do a thorough interview first,” Dr. Doss said. “We will ask questions about how long you’ve had the pain, if it’s dull or stabbing and if you have other symptoms with the pain.”

If you have any of the following less common symptoms, seek care from a health care provider immediately . They could be signs of an urgent illness:

• Sharp, intense pain in the right side of your lower back or lower abdomen that is accompanied by nausea, vomiting or fever
• Bowel or bladder pain or dysfunction that comes with sharp pain, weakness, numbness or tingling in the lower body

How is lower right back pain treated?

“Treatment depends entirely on the condition causing the pain,” Dr. Doss said.

Pain relief can come from:

• Medications such as muscle relaxers or pain medicine
• Back braces
• Physical therapy stretching or exercise programs
• Complementary therapies such as massage or acupuncture
• Surgical treatment

Back pain can interfere with your day to day life, but there are specialists who can help you feel better.

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