Nurse undergoes extensive spine surgery to correct severe scoliosis

Vickie McDonald, 53, a perioperative services nurse at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital, suffered on and off with pain from scoliosis for more than 30 years.

“It didn’t cause me pain at first, but after I had my third son, there would be times I’d have to take off work just to be on my back and rest,” she says.

McDonald did a lot of chiropractic care over the years to keep her spine to where she was still able to function, work as a nurse and take care of her boys.

Then, about three years ago, she began experiencing a mix of pain and numbness in her left hip and leg.

“As nurses, we tend to care for everyone else and not ourselves, so I let it go for a while,” McDonald says. “But it felt like my leg was a foreign body I was dragging along that didn’t belong to me. About mid-year last year, when the pain got to the point where I could barely work, I knew I had to do something.”

She scheduled an appointment with Benjamin Chen, MD, a MultiCare orthopedic and spine surgeon.

“I knew Dr. Chen because I usually take care of his patients either right before or right after surgery,” explains McDonald. “I know he is highly recommended and has a great rapport with his patients and staff.”

When she met with Dr. Chen, X-rays and an MRI revealed her scoliosis had become severe and that she had degenerative disc disease.

“The curvature had gotten worse,” she says. “And the discs I did have left in my lower spine were either compressed or bone on bone. That’s why I was in pain and couldn’t feel my left leg.”

Dr. Chen explains that McDonald’s curve was significant in her lower lumbar spine.

“When people have major structural deformities like that, it becomes an imbalance of the body and the spine isn’t optimized to support daily activities,” he says.

He discussed both surgical and nonsurgical options with McDonald.

“I decided to go the less-invasive route at first and got injections,” she says. “They didn’t help at all. So, I sat down with Dr. Chen again, and we went over surgical options and my lifestyle expectations.”

McDonald expressed her love of nursing to Dr. Chen and that her expectation — if at all possible — was to return to her same position, even though it’s physically demanding. She didn’t want a desk job.

“I’m on my feet eight to 10 hours a day and rarely sit down, but I love being at the bedside and taking care of my patients,” she adds.

A complex, yet seamless, surgical experience

Because of the extent of her scoliosis, another orthopedic spine surgeon who specializes in scoliosis — Jos Cove, MD, from MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital — assisted Dr. Chen with that part of the surgery.

McDonald recalls feeling nervous the morning of surgery, but Dr. Chen and Dr. Cove came to see her to share the plan.

“They told me they had been preparing for my surgery for a long time,” says McDonald. “It reassured me to hear that and to talk to them about their plan.”

Dr. Chen emphasizes how much planning goes into these types of complex spine surgeries.

“Vickie had a very complex issue and a type of surgery — robotic lumbar fusion — that not a lot of people undergo,” Dr. Chen says. “We’re proud to offer these types of surgeries and have built an excellent robotic program at Good Sam with a collaborative team that tackles these surgeries together.”

The doctors showed her the X-rays and where they were going to put the screws, rods and cages. To fix the curvature of her spine, they told her they would fuse only as high as necessary to give her relief from pain but have as much mobility as possible.

McDonald relayed how important it was to her that they didn’t fuse too high, as she wanted to be able to bend over and tie her shoes.

“Dr. Chen assured me they would take the best care of me,” she adds. “He said, ‘I want to get you back to working because I know how much you enjoy it and how much your patients love you.’”

“There is shared decision-making with the patient,” says Dr. Chen. “It was important for Vickie not to have an overly stiff back and have the chance to get back to work. We decided together that would be reasonable to achieve.”

After surgery, McDonald remembers when Dr. Chen came in to check on her.

“The first thing he said, with a big smile on his face, was, ‘You’re still going to be able to tie your shoes.’ I was so excited and happy about that,” she recalls.

Pain-free and back to work

McDonald recovered from surgery after 12 weeks, then returned to work. She’s happy to report she’s pain-free and feeling the best she’s felt in years.

“I don’t have any pain at all. In fact, I could tell my pain was completely gone the moment I woke up from surgery,” she says. “And everything healed nicely. It’s easy to forget I even had extensive surgery just this past December.”

McDonald feels her surgery has made her a better nurse.

“Being on the patient side made me realize you’re putting yourself in someone else’s hands and trusting them,” she explains. “I knew the people I was giving control to when I had my surgery. It’s a much more vulnerable experience when you don’t know the people taking care of you.”

That’s why she says she especially enjoys talking to Dr. Chen’s patients before they head into surgery.

“I do what I can do ease their fears. I reassure them they are in the best care possible, and I know this firsthand because of my surgery,” says McDonald. “When I describe what I had done, they look at me and say things like, ‘You’re kidding me. Look at you, you’re up and on your feet!’ It gives them such a sense of relief.”

She credits Dr. Chen with giving her the ability to get back to doing what she loves without being in pain.

“I have a lot more living, working and sharing to do thanks to Dr. Chen,” adds McDonald. “He’s my hero, and he gave me my life back.”