How Stan Got His Travel Back! 

Stan loved to travel and visit family and friends.  But for almost a year and a half instead of going places and seeing people, Stan was nearly bedridden.  Pain in his lower back radiated down his left leg, and eventually every step hurt.  It hurt to walk, stand, and sit.  “If I went to the store for a loaf of bread, I still got a shopping cart so I could lean on it for support,” Stan says.

His first physician, a neurologist, read the MRI and didn’t think surgery was necessary, and Stan was referred to another doctor in the practice for a week-long trial with spinal cord stimulators.  “It was okay,” he says.  “It didn’t work 100%, but it took a lot of the pain away.”  Ready to do anything to relieve his pain, Stan decided to go ahead with the implant surgery.  “My insurance was changing in January, but the approval process got dragged out, then his insurance changed so he had to requalify.  That happened, surgery was scheduled, and then 3 days before surgery Stan tested positive for COVID-19.

“You have to wait 30 days after you test negative, and in the meantime, my niece came to visit me and she had been Dr Coe’s patient and she just raved about him.  ‘You should call him!’ she told me.  And I was waiting anyway, so I went to go see him.  The minute he looked at the x-ray, Dr Coe said ‘There’s your problem.’ And then he explained what was going on and what my options were.  It just felt right.  His confidence felt right, where I never felt like the other doctors were as sure, and I did have reservations.  It’s my back, and that’s a big deal when you think about being operated on.”

So instead of having spinal cord stimulators implanted, he had spinal surgery with Dr. Coe.  Dr. Coe fixed a chronic problem.  The other surgery would only have masked it.

“It was life-changing!” Stan says.  “My only regret is that I waited so long.  I’d gotten to the point where I wasn’t able to attend social events with family and friends, because I was in so much pain.  After surgery was like night and day.  They got me up to walk after I came out of anesthesia, and I was nervous.  I was afraid there was still going to be pain with that first step, but no!  I walked down that hallway with no pain for the first time in over a year.  I feel blessed that I feel as good as I do now.”

When we spoke, Stan was calling from South Carolina!  He can travel again, sit on a plane.