Kaweah Delta Stories: Georg's Story

Описание: Neurosurgery patient, Georg Earley shares how the neurosurgeons at Kaweah Delta Neurosciences Center not only relieved crippling back pain, but saved his job, home and family.

SCRIPT:
Never had back problems and I was running my backhoe and couldn’t get this little rock in my bucket. It just would not go in there because of the angle of the hill. Well I jumped off the tractor picked up this rock up and threw it in my bucket. I was working with two guys, and I didn’t hear it but I just fell to the ground, they heard a pop. I was so worried because we weren’t even sleeping in the same bed. He would come out and sleep on the couch because he was in such agony. He didn’t want to keep me awake at night but I was very very worried he was never going to be the same again. I’d be walking and my back would go out. We’d be walking in Costco and I’d just fall to the ground or I’d fall on my wife and she’d keep me from hitting the floor and it’s embarrassing. I mean this is how I’d walk, I’d turn around and have to go like this… horrible. I meant to do something with it but every time I said okay that’s it I’m going to go do it, it would be fine and I said well okay maybe it is fine. So I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. And then one day I sneezed on the way to work and that was it. We almost crashed and we drove straight to the emergency room. And we went to the Emergency because we had no appointment, so he had to go to the emergency to take the MRI. Yeah I had a herniated disc and a bunch of other problems going on in there. So I went into Kaweah and we seen Dr. Liu, neurology department. We look at all our patients and try to understand where they are coming from, what their problems are, what’s going on in their lives because what we recommend really has to take into account all of these things. It’s not a one size fits all situation. He actually told me that he has similar pain in his back and he lives with that I should really just think about whether I want to go in and have this surgery or not. Anytime somebody suffers from any kind of illness, there is lots of options, surgery is only one of them. And I came home and I told my wife you know I’m not going to do it and I talked to my my dad and he said once you cut into your back, it’s done. I heard the horror stories but these are old horror stories before the technology advanced. When we consider something like surgery it’s really when the trajectory of the natural process of healing isn’t getting us where we want to go. So then we went, what, two days and your pain just got so much worse and you weren’t getting any better and you called. It’s hard to describe that ongoing pain you know? You ever hit your thumb with a hammer and that pain was just like.. And you keep squeezing it and squeezing it and eventually it goes away. Now imagine that pain not stopping. There could be a fire over here but all you can think about is that pain. That’s how it is with back pain, herniated disc back pain. So people who have this pain know what I’m talking about uh but people who don’t, you don’t know. It’s just like you go into war and you think damnit I can imagine, no you can’t imagine what it is like. When he woke up in the hospital he the first thing he did was see if he had feeling in his foot because he lost feeling in your right or left foot? Right foot. When he woke up he had sensation in his foot and when I was able to stand up and actually walk, I was just like yeah this is going to be okay and you didn’t feel any pain but you told me that if Dr. Liu was there you would kiss him. You didn’t need to tell them that… When he came out after your surgery to tell me Georg would be okay you could tell in his eyes that he cared. It’s not like oh your husband is okay, he really took the time to explain what he did and that he thinks Georg is going to be okay and that everything went very well. Great guy, very wonderful outcome. It’s like brand new, it’s like brand new. I have no back pain what so ever. They saved my life completely, they saved my the joy in my life, and they saved the new experiences in my life, they saved my marriage and I’m not saying my wife would leave me but that romance wasn’t there you know what I mean? They saved my employment, they saved my home and yeah they saved my life. Everybody who has medical issues they’re always in Santa Barbara or Stanford but they had it here. Something of his nature, what he needed done they had here and to me that is just totally awesome. Best thing he ever did. And I’ve passed some pretty big sized kidney stones where they had to put a stint inside me to pass them. It wasn’t nothing compared to that pain and he fixed me and I’ll be forever in debt to that man. For forever. You would still kiss him? Yeah, I think I’d kiss him, right on the lips.