An Unbelievable Change: Back to Living Without Pain

For near­ly six months, pain slow­ly took over Janet’s life.

What start­ed as pain in her right hip became some­thing much big­ger, some­thing that affect­ed near­ly every part of her day. ​“I could not sleep at night,” she said. ​“I could hard­ly get out of bed in the morn­ing. It would take me for­ev­er to straight­en up after get­ting up.”

Sim­ple rou­tines became dif­fi­cult deci­sions. Tasks most peo­ple nev­er think twice about sud­den­ly required care­ful plan­ning .“I used to do yard work,” she said. ​“It affect­ed that. We have a fifth wheel and go boat­ing, and I wasn’t able to get on the boat with­out it hurt­ing. Every day it affect­ed me.”

Like many peo­ple liv­ing with chron­ic pain, Janet tried to push through it. She assumed it was some­thing she just had to live with or it was just a nat­ur­al part of aging. ​“I was think­ing, ​‘There’s noth­ing wrong with me. It’s just arthri­tis or what­ev­er,’” she said.

How­ev­er, when the pain didn’t improve, she men­tioned it dur­ing an appoint­ment with her pri­ma­ry care provider, Kathy Asbury, MD, DABFM, FAAFP, with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG). That con­ver­sa­tion changed every­thing. After imag­ing and fur­ther eval­u­a­tion, Janet learned the true source of her pain wasn’t her hip at all. It was her low­er back. An MRI revealed a com­pres­sion frac­ture and oth­er issues con­tribut­ing to her symp­toms. She was referred to QMG Ortho­pe­dic Spine Sur­geon Philip Mein­hardt, MD.

Under­stand­ing the Problem

Janet remem­bers her first appoint­ment with Dr. Mein­hardt clear­ly. ​“He was so easy­go­ing and kind,” she said. ​“He pulled up my MRI and explained every­thing — what the prob­lem was, what treat­ment could be, and then a plan of care.”

Togeth­er, they dis­cussed options, includ­ing injec­tions and surgery. ​“I had five areas,” she explained. ​“He said injec­tions would kind of be hit or miss try­ing to find the right place. We talked about surgery, and I told him imme­di­ate­ly, ​‘Let’s do the surgery.’”

Like many patients, she car­ried under­stand­able fears — con­cerns about the pro­ce­dure itself and uncer­tain­ty about whether life after­ward would tru­ly feel dif­fer­ent. Still, the lim­i­ta­tions she faced every day made the choice feel clear.

With­in about a week and a half, her pro­ce­dure was sched­uled. ​“I was ner­vous,” she admit­ted. ​“But I trust­ed the team.”

A Turn­ing Point

When Janet woke after surgery, some­thing felt dif­fer­ent almost imme­di­ate­ly. The pain she had lived with for so long was gone. ​“The next day when every­thing wore off, the pain had already sub­sided tremen­dous­ly,” Janet said. ​“I couldn’t believe it. It had prob­a­bly gone down 50 percent.”

Then came a moment she didn’t imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize as remark­able. She stood up from bed and began walk­ing, only real­iz­ing after­ward what had hap­pened. ​“The fol­low­ing morn­ing, I was able to get up out of bed and stand up straight,” she said. ​“That was a shock. I didn’t real­ize I had done it until I start­ed walking.”

For months, her body had adjust­ed to pain, bend­ing and guard­ing against move­ment with­out her even notic­ing. Stand­ing upright again felt almost unfa­mil­iar. ​“I thought, ​‘Something’s wrong,’” she said with a laugh. ​“But it wasn’t wrong. It was better.”

Heal­ing with Purpose

Recov­ery required patience and dis­ci­pline, and Janet approached it with deter­mi­na­tion. She care­ful­ly fol­lowed every post-oper­a­tive instruc­tion, under­stand­ing that heal­ing didn’t end when surgery was over.

“I did every­thing they said — no bend­ing, no lift­ing, no twist­ing,” she said. ​“I think that helped me, too.”

By the time she returned for her post-oper­a­tive vis­it, the progress spoke for itself. ​“My pain was min­i­mal,” she said. ​“And right now, I can hon­est­ly tell you I have no pain. I haven’t even had an aspirin since pri­or to surgery.”

Redis­cov­er­ing Every­day Moments

Today, Janet is back to doing the things she once wor­ried she might lose. ​“I’m back to doing every­thing I did pri­or,” she said. ​“I’ve been work­ing in the yard, being out­doors, and doing house­work again. You take those things for grant­ed until you can’t do them.”

Before surgery, dai­ly chores required care­ful trade-offs. ​“If I was going to run the sweep­er, then I couldn’t make the bed that day. The pain was so bad I couldn’t do both.”

She also reflects on how much the pain affect­ed her emo­tion­al­ly and men­tal­ly. ​“Tired, cranky, exhaust­ed with no sleep,” she said. ​“My hus­band said I had a very short fuse.”

Today, the dif­fer­ence is obvi­ous, not only in what she can do, but in how she feels. ​“Now you hear me laugh­ing,” she said.

A Mes­sage for Oth­ers Liv­ing with Pain

Look­ing back, Janet real­izes how easy it is to accept pain as a new nor­mal. ​“Yes, I had accept­ed it,” she said. ​“Until my pri­ma­ry doc­tor said, ​‘Let’s check it out.’”

Now mov­ing freely again, she hopes oth­ers won’t wait as long as she did.

“Go to Dr. Mein­hardt,” she said. ​“I regret not going ear­li­er to get the pain relief that I have got­ten and return­ing to my nor­mal life. It’s just an unbe­liev­able change.”

Explore more about Ortho­pe­dic Spine Surgery at QMG.