Why St. Louis?

At this point, you might be wondering why I selected the surgeon I felt least comforted by and whose office is nearly 1000 miles away. Well, here are my reasons:

1) Dr. Lenke is very well practiced.

2) He also works to better the overall technique. In fact, do to his procedure of placing screws on every vertebrate to be fused, rather than just the extremes, he is able to achieve the maximum possible correction, and has no need to perform a thoracoplasty (rib removal/regrowth). My xrays will look like that shown on the first blog.

3) Not having a thoracoplasty means one less scar.

4) No incision for bone removal to be used as bone graft because he will use cadaver bone (yuck, but if it reduces the number of scars I'll have I'll take it) and bone morphogenic proteins (BMP).

5) Very very accessible staff. In fact, I can reach them directly, no need to leave a voice mail and wait a couple of days for a call back.

6) Dr. Lenke's office is very familiar with patients who travel a long distance and try to work with that fact when scheduling.

7) I realized that I could categorize the surgeon's persona as one of two types, either as a surgeon or a doctor. By that I mean a surgeon's primary goal is to cut you open and fix you, and a doctor's is to take care of you throughout time. I view Dr. Lenke as fitting more in the surgeon category and Dr. Horton in the doctor category. My surgery will hopefully be a one time deal, which a year or so of follow-up visits, and a result that will affect me for a lifetime. In this case, I decided that a surgeon, rather than a caring doctor, is more important. So I selected Dr. Lenke. I'm sure that both Dr. Lenke and Dr. Horton are equally capable, and in fact had I only seen Dr. Horton, I would have felt completely comfortable having him as my surgeon. He was kind, caring, thoughtful, and sympathetic. But I was given a choice, and ultimately I choose Dr. Lenke.

Long Time No Talk

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last posted. A lot has happened since then, as I went on my whirlwind driving trip of the SouthEast. On such trip, I finally met with my 2nd Opinions, Atlanta and St. Louis. I honestly thought the driving would be a lot worse than it was. Despite losing our driver's licenses (both mine and my husbands) and having to replace the car's front windshield after being hit by a rock, it was a fine trip. The doctor's appointments were whirlwind trips...we wanted to spend most of our time relaxing in Williamsburg.

Those 5 days in Wburg were some of the most relaxing days I've had there. Without the chaos of the holidays, and some time on our side, we were able to spend time with family without being rushed, and to do as we wanted, like spending 3 days at Busch Gardens and Water Country. I hadn't been to an amusement parks in years, much less a water park, and who knows when I'll be able to do it again after the surgery. Jonathan and I had a grand time running around the parks. We wore ourselves out, but we had a great time doing so. We were also fortunate enough to have an uncle and cousins who graciously worked their schedules around so we could go out on their boat. Jonathan and I went water skiing and wakeboarding. Jonathan, who'd never done any motorized water sports before, was a natural. I tended to swallow a bit more water, at least with the wake boarding.

At any rate, the doctors visits were fine. Both were 180 degrees different from the other. That certainly did not make my decision any easier. I was hoping that after visiting with both doctors, one would surely be more in tune with my idea of a great surgery. That wasn't the case, both doctors had their pluses and minuses. For instance, I really liked the bedside manner of Dr. Horton, and his care and concern, but I liked Dr. Lenke's surgical approach better. I hated the longggggggggggg wait and dull waiting room at Dr. Lenke's, and appreciated the ontime appointment and comfortable settings at Dr. Horton's. Another difference - Dr. Lenke's staff has been much more accessible, at least thus far. Oh and of course, the distance from Charleston, Atlanta is much easily to deal with due to distance. So how does one ultimately select where to go?

After flip-floping in my decision for 2 weeks, I finally settled on Dr. Lenke in St. Louis.