This past couple of weeks has been very busy caring for many of our younger scoliosis patients who have just recently gotten out of school.
This past Wednesday, we cared for 12 yo Emily and her family.
Emily had a 47 degree thoracolumbar curve, and got an excellent correction of her curve.
Preop she had quite a crew here, including her parents, grandparents, pastor and his wife.
The pastor led all of us in a wonderful prayer before surgery.
Emily’s surgery went very smoothly, completing a T5-L3 instrumentation and fusion with thoracic and lumbar pedicle screw instrumentation.
Her surgery took a little over three hours, and we were able to spare 3 discs below her fusion, based on preop bending films and intraoperative findings.
As shown in X-Rays above, her correction is close to 100 percent, with the lower discs also leveling off nicely.
Her estimated blood loss (EBL) was 1100 cc, and 500 cc was returned to her with the cell saver machine.
She did not require blood transfusion.
Her mom and dad and family were totally psyched to see her preop/postop X-Ray comparison right after surgery.
They greeted Emily a couple hours after surgery up in their large private room, where the family stayed with her for the 3 nights in the hospital.
Emily’s posture is excellent, with complete removal of the thoracic and lumbar “humps”.  Her torso is in excellent balance, and she looks about 2 inches taller!
Emily went home this morning with her parents, doing very well.

Best wishes, Emily for a speedy recovery!

Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
Raleigh, NC  USA
https://www.heyclinic.com

Note: At Hey Clinic, we respect our guest’s privacy, but also allow sharing to encourage others, and allow others in the greater community to learn.
Emily’s parents gladly share this Blog entry with attached photos with friends and family and others who visit our Hey Clinic Blog, as confirmed with them June 13 2008 9pm.