GETTING A NEW LEASE ON LIFE AFTER SPINE SURGERY
Getting older shouldn't mean being sidelined from your favorite activities – and Charles Burton is living proof.
Thanks to the expert diagnosis, surgery, treatment and care he received at the hospital's Marc A. Asher, MD, Comprehensive Spine Center, the Kansas State University engineering professor and construction consultant is again hale and hearty. At 73, he's back to enjoying 18 holes of golf and an active lifestyle of walking, jogging and biking with his wife, Linda.
Seeing him today, it's hard to imagine that in 2008, he could just barely get around because of pain in his legs and lower back.
"My leg would feel like it was going to sleep while I was walking or just going through daily movements," Burton explained. "I also had considerable pain in my lower back anytime I was upright. It got to where I was walking more or less bent over, with my upper torso at an angle."
Burton has always stayed on top of his health. So the diagnosis of lumbar spinal stenosis – narrowing of the space in the lower back that contains nerves supplying the legs – motivated him to find a way to fix the problem.
"I've always been very active but had come to a point where I could do very little," he said. "It's difficult to know what to do with yourself when you're suddenly so limited."
Spinal stenosis is a common problem that can come with aging as discs in the spine age and deteriorate, explained R. Sean Jackson, MD, a surgeon at the spine center. These changes begin to squeeze and irritate the nerves within and around the spinal canal. Slowly, over a period of time, this can causes neurogenic claudication – pain, numbness and weakness in the buttocks, legs and feet, and in the lower back when standing or walking.
"I knew I needed to get moving again, and seeing a surgeon is what it would take," Burton said.
His first visit to the spine center was in November 2008, just after the state-of-the-art facility opened as the first and only center of its kind in the Kansas City metro area. Patients can meet with their physicians, undergo diagnostic tests and treatment, and attend rehabilitation therapy sessions without traveling to different locations.
Dr. Jackson met with Burton for an initial assessment and tests. He recommended a common type of surgery for his condition: a decompressive laminectomy. Because Burton also had a spondylolysis – vertebra slipping out of line – the laminectomy alone could have made his spine unstable. Dr. Jackson also recommended a spinal fusion procedure to give Burton's back greater stability after the surgery.
"This is a common ailment we see in older patients, making it difficult for them to walk or stand for any length of time," Dr. Jackson explained. "It's like there is a napkin ring around the nerves in their spine that squeezes tightly whenever they are upright. Surgery is a major step toward helping these patients regain their movement."
Burton recalls feeling a change immediately following his surgery. For the first time in about three years, he did not have leg pain. Even so, the recovery process from any spinal surgery is far from instantaneous. Healing requires careful movement, slow increases and frequent checkups, including X-rays to follow a patient's progress.
Burton resumed teaching full-time in January 2009, about a month after his spine surgery. After a successful checkup in May 2009, he returned to his golf game.
The overall result of his surgery? "It's like getting your life back," he concluded.