Back on the pitch – after back surgery
PATIENT care
BY AMBER SMITH
FOR WEEKS, Kendall Discenza didn’t know what was wrong. e pain in her lower back became crippling, and she was le sobbing. Surgery brought relief. Discenza underwent a microdiscectomy at Upstate University Hospital. Lawrence Chin, MD, who leads the neurosurgery department, removed a herniated disc fragment between the 5th lumbar and 1st sacral vertebrae in Discenza’s lower back. “You should see my scar. It’s so tiny,” she says. Discenza, who plays soccer for Hamilton College, was liing weights in January 2018 aer her freshman season. She was doing Romanian dead lis, intended to strengthen her hamstrings. Holding a straight metal bar, she bent forward at her waist, and then back up. She felt her back straining but didn’t think anything of it. An achiness continued and grew worse over the next several weeks. It was March before her health insurer gave permission for a magnetic resonance imaging scan. e images showed a herniation, where the disc’s interior protrudes outward, and Discenza began physical therapy. She also had cortisone injections. “But then it got worse, and worse and worse,” she recalls. “It got so bad, it got to the point where my mom came up (from the family home near Washington, D.C.) and was taking me to doctors in Syracuse.” Discenza got an appointment with Denise Karsten, a chiropractor and registered nurse at the Upstate Brain and Spine Center, who went over the MRI with Discenza and her mother. “is is a pretty big herniation. You’re probably going to need surgery,” Karsten predicted.
Back surgery patient Kendall Discenza plays on the soccer team at Hamilton College. SUPPLIED PHOTO
At the time, Discenza was focused on wrapping up her spring semester. e pain was crippling at times. She remembers lying on the bed in her dorm one day, believing she was paralyzed. She realized she couldn’t put off treatment. She made an appointment to see Karsten again with Chin.
because sitting was so painful. As she researched “microdiscectomy,” she learned that she was about to undergo the same procedure that New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski had three times to repair herniated discs.
surgery brought relief
She admits she was frightened. She expected she would have to stay overnight in the hospital.
Chin explained what would be involved in a microdiscectomy, a procedure intended to minimize the skin incision, muscle involvement and amount of bone removed in order to relieve the herniation. ere is a small risk of nerve damage, but the procedure is almost always successful. Some patients go home the same day.
When she woke up from anesthesia, “My legs were extended out straight. I pointed my legs up toward my body, and I knew that the pain was gone. e pressure was gone. I lied my foot up, and the first thing I said to my mom was, ‘It’s gone. I know that it’s gone’.”
“I was asking him, ‘Am I going to be able to play soccer again?’ He was really reassuring and super kind, and he had such a good rapport. He made me feel really comfortable.” Discenza went home with her parents for several days, worked on completing her schoolwork and prepared mentally for surgery. She pretty much had to lie flat
Chin says that’s not unusual. “If they’re in a lot of pain, they’re going to feel relief right away. at’s what I aim for.” Discenza recovered with her parents at a Syracuse home they rented through Airbnb. “e next two days, it was tough to get up and walk,” she remembers. “It was pretty sore, but that’s part of what you have to do.” Discenza was able to finish her schoolwork for the spring continued on page 9
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U P S TAT E H E A LT H
upstate.edu l winter 2019
