Age: 65
Hometown: Beaverton, OR
Surgical practice: Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center,
Tualatin, OR
Procedure: eXtreme Lateral Interbody Fusion (XLIF®)
Surgery Date: February 5, 2013
Life Prior to Surgery: Rich struggled with back pain on and off beginning in 1969, when he returned from Vietnam. The pain didn’t become chronic until 1999, when it “hit him like a ton of bricks” and he began to experience sciatica as well.
“I would golf one day and then I would have to go home and lay on the floor for a few hours. It was horrible. I couldn’t do anything the next day,” Rich says.
He consulted with a few doctors and was referred to a physical therapist. Rich did physical therapy religiously for some pain relief.
Once therapy was no longer helpful, Rich started cortisone injections. He underwent five injections before they were able to provide him with any relief. In the interim, Rich started losing feeling in his arm and had to undergo a cervical fusion procedure. He also had three shoulder surgeries and a hip replacement. His surgeon then performed a laminectomy, which helped Rich a lot, until his knee “went bad” and he needed knee surgery. The combination of being unsteady from his hip and his knee on opposite sides caused Rich’s back pain to worsen.
“I went south, I was taking too many narcotics, and the therapy wasn’t helping,” he says. Rich eventually retired because he could no longer physically handle the traveling required for his job. “If I could have found a way to kill myself without affecting my family, I would have done it.”
Rich finally went to see his surgeon again, who recommended the minimally disruptive XLIF procedure.
Situation Today: Rich underwent XLIF surgery in February 2013. The night of his operation, he was up and doing laps around the nurse’s station.
“I woke up the next morning, dressed myself, and did a tap dance for my surgeon!” Rich says. He was driving just six days post-op and back to playing golf three weeks later. “I feel like I’m 50 again and I don’t think I was a special case – the XLIF procedure is truly a game-changer and I hope I can help someone with my story.”
Rich is a lot more active than he was before his surgery and he’s back to walking, golfing, and restoring old pedal cars, which he donates to charities such as the Salvation Army.
13-NUVA-1147