MEMPHIS FIT
By Lucy Harrison Photo by Tindall Stephens
It’s All About Managing Pain for Dr. Jeff Brown For 10 years, Dr. Jeff Brown, 46, enjoyed a career as a cardiac anesthesiologist. He lived comfortably raising two sons and had turned to cycling as a way to lose the weight he had gained during the stressful years of his residency. By cutting out processed foods and biking at least 80 miles a week, he lost 50 pounds. He was enjoying being active with his family, and it was a beautiful spring day when he was outside playing basketball with his sons that his life started on a much different trajectory. “I felt lightning pain shooting down both my legs. I knew this was not good. As it turned out, I had severe compression of the nerves exiting my spinal cord,” he says.
Repairing the Damage Jeff had spent years with back pain, and he finally had to undergo a spinal fusion surgery in May 2015. A daunting operation that involved placing rods and bolts into his spinal column, Jeff knew he was in for a painful recovery. “Many patients never make it back to work with the condition I had, and a lot of them never get off pain medicines,” he says. Jeff lost two close friends to opioid overdoses, which influenced his decision to undergo rehabilitation without pain medicine. He started with a land-based and aquatic physical therapy program at Semmes Murphey Clinic. He was determined to stay fit and walked every single day, even becoming somewhat of a celebrity at the Germantown Athletic Center for his determination and willpower. They watched him as he progressed from a walker to a cane to moving on his own.
Getting Back on the Bike Despite Jeff’s resolve to stay active post surgery, getting back into cycling at the level he used to took nearly a year of slow and painstaking progress. 20
