"As I woke up, there was no pain in my leg. As soon as they got me up to walk, I could walk," Kara Galbraith, 59, recalled
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NEED TO KNOW
- A 59-year-old woman, who lives in Michigan, has successfully undergone robotic spinal fusion surgery after years of pain caused by diagnoses including spondylolisthesis and a pinched nerve
- “As I woke up, there was no pain in my leg. As soon as they got me up to walk, I could walk,” Kara Galbraith recalled
- “It was amazing, I mean walking-miracle stuff. That’s how I describe it to people,” she said of the operation, according to a University of Chicago Medicine release
For the first time in years, a woman is experiencing what it’s like to wake up without pain in her leg.
Ten years ago, Kara Galbraith, 59, of Laurium, Mich., was diagnosed with spondylolysis after noticing her right leg started to feel strange during her daily walks, according to a release shared by the University of Chicago Medicine on Tuesday, April 14.
Per the Cleveland Clinic, "Spondylolysis is a small crack between two vertebrae (the bones in your spine)." The medical condition "usually causes lower back pain," but "most people don’t need surgery to treat it," the site states.
However, if left unattended, spondylolysis can lead to spondylolisthesis, "which happens when a stress fracture worsens over time and allows the vertebra to move abnormally," the University of Chicago Medicine reported.
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Despite trying to use exercise as a remedy for her back pain, scans showed spondylolisthesis had developed in Galbraith’s lower spine, the release noted. She then went to her primary care physician in the later part of 2024 after the pain got so intense.
Doctors ended up diagnosing Galbraith with a pinched nerve, and she was told she could use pain medications, steroids, physical therapy, numbing injections or surgery to treat her symptoms.
“Galbraith tried physical therapy and a steroid injection, but neither helped,” the release read. “She then saw a neurosurgeon, who suggested fusing together the two vertebrae in question to stabilize her spine and reduce pressure on the irritated nerve.”
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“She had a significant amount of movement — over two centimeters, which is a lot — between the L5 and S1 vertebral bodies of the spine,” Mohamad Bydon, MD, Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine, said in a statement.
Bydon had been working at a different healthcare institution during Galbraith's initial consult, the release stated.
After being told about the surgery, Galbraith was faced with another setback after she was diagnosed with osteoporosis, per the university. The condition causes bones to become so weak and brittle that even a cough or bending over could cause a break, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The release noted that osteoporosis "increases the risk of bone fractures and makes spine surgery riskier because the weakened bones heal more slowly, and the screws used to stabilize the spine are more likely to loosen or fail over time.”
“I could have just cried,” Galbraith said, adding that she couldn’t even walk to her nearby church. “I was very concerned about whether I was going to be able to walk again," per the release.
She continued, “I researched all of the neurosurgeons to see who specialized in my area. Dr. Bydon was by far the person, no question.”
Minimally invasive and nonsurgical procedures are offered at UChicago Medicine’s Comprehensive Spine Center, the release stated. The spondylolisthesis surgery has historically been invasive, with doctors creating a large incision in the patient’s back so they can access the spine by moving muscles.
They then “decompress the nerves by removing pressure on them, and then realign and fuse the vertebral bone with bone grafts, screws and rods,” according to the release.
New procedures have since been made available for patients, with Bydon leading “robotic and minimally invasive techniques for 10 years to help reduce surgery times and incision lengths" for those that undergo the operations, the release continued.
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It took the doctor around 75 minutes to complete his robotic spinal fusion surgery on Galbraith last September. Bydon formed an “incision the size of a grape” to fuse Galbraith’s vertebral bones, per the post.
“This approach meant we could avoid a large open incision and a lot of muscle dissection, as well as blood loss,” Bydon said. “We were also able to avoid fusing more than one level of her spine, which means she has more movement than she would have in a more traditional surgery.”
Recalling the immediate pain relief, Galbraith said, “As I woke up, there was no pain in my leg. As soon as they got me up to walk, I could walk," per the release.
Three months after her surgery, the patient advocate and hospital administrative secretary added, “Everything is getting fired back up, little by little.”
“There are no shortcuts to a successful recovery from this kind of surgery — slow and steady wins the race,” she continued. “It was amazing, I mean walking-miracle stuff. That's how I describe it to people.”
Read the full article here