“I was broken in mind, body, and spirit when I first came to KCP,” says Christina. “I had been in chronic pain for almost five years and didn’t know if I would ever get better. But Joy gave me the courage to hope. She fought for me and made me believe that I could have a better life.”
When Christina’s back pain began, she went to a chiropractor for over six months. When she failed to make improvement, she saw a spine surgeon who she told her there wasn’t much he could do. “He told me this was my life now and that I would just have to get used to it. But it was horrible – I didn’t want to get used to it! He referred me to their internal PT clinic, but I tried it twice and didn’t go back. They were rude and the experience was not good.”
“I couldn’t believe this was my life,” she says. She went back to the chiropractor who referred her to a soft tissue specialist. She found it “super helpful” and started to feel hopeful.
Then, after going sledding with her son, Christina says, “The entire disc herniated. It was horrible, horrible, horrible!”
Surgery came next. “I had a super great surgeon,” she says. “They performed a microdiscectomy. But after six months, I still wasn’t doing well. I had no idea what to do. I applied for another surgery called an intersect procedure to kill the nerves inside my vertebrae. I was hoping this was going to be the miracle, but it wasn’t. I went back to the soft tissue specialist, but it didn’t help this time. I was going to doctors all the time and no one could figure it out.”
As a young mother, Christina says she was frustrated with not being able to do things with her kids or have any kind of social support. “I was at home in my bed all the time,” she says. “I couldn’t drive carpool for my kids or even make them dinner. I couldn’t do anything with friends. I couldn’t go to events at church because of the pain. I thought, How am I supposed to live like this?”
When she told her friend Melissa from church about her situation, she learned that Melissa had been helped by KCP. Having undergone many surgeries herself, Melissa shared how KCP had helped her over the years and strongly recommended that Christina make an appointment. “Part of me rolled my eyes,” admits Christina. “I thought, Do I really want to go and retell all of these stories to another new person? I’d been to so many providers already. But the sense of chronic pain is so overwhelming. It consumes every piece of your life. I know and trust Melissa, so I thought that I had to try.”
After only a few visits, physical therapist Joy Pfuhl encouraged Christina to get an MRI. While it showed “a few small things,” Joy didn’t see anything that explained Christina’s pain. “There’s still something else going on,” she told Christina. “I can feel this with my hands!” She suggested an additional MRI of a different location.
“When she told me she could put her hands on it, it meant so much to me!” says Christina. “I needed that. My friends were telling me to go to a counselor and that it was all in my head. I was starting to feel crazy and have self doubt. I needed that assurance from her.”
After the second MRI came back, showing a fractured disc, Christina’s surgeon told her that he did not want to perform a fusion surgery for her. He was concerned that it would lead to more surgeries and even further limitations. He referred her to a doctor in Texas who performed artificial disc replacement surgeries and had operated on Tiger Woods.
“I was desperate,” Christina says. “I made the call to him and went to see him in Texas. He said to me, ‘You do not need to live like this. This is not okay. You are 100% a candidate for this surgery.”
He explained how to begin the process of getting scheduled for surgery. First, Christina would have to file with her insurance company. “He told me that insurance would deny it, but that I couldn’t qualify for self-pay until we got the denial. He told us to expect to wait around 8 weeks for that, which would have been mid-October. We had no idea how we would be able to afford it, but we applied and began the process,” she says.
The day after she applied, the scheduler at the doctor’s office called to schedule her surgery. Confused, Christina said, “Wait, I thought we couldn’t schedule it until after they denied it.”
The scheduler said, “Oh no – you’re approved! Apparently you have some rider on your insurance that we’ve never seen before. If you have any surgery before October 1st of this year, it will be paid in full. Your whole surgery is covered.”
“I just started crying,” says Christina. “I asked her if she believed in God, and I told her this was a God thing! This was a miracle! What a crazy miracle!”
The surgery (which Christina learned cost $350,000) was performed in Dallas two weeks later. She received three artificial discs – L4, L5, and S1. She returned to Charlotte and began PT at KCP again.
“I was still in a lot of pain after that third surgery,” she says. “I was a mess when I went in there (to KCP). I was wearing compression socks, I had a blood clot in my arm, and I had a ciroma sac (4 pounds of liquid gathered inside of me) draining outside my stomach with a catheter. And My Sherona was playing in the office and Joy said, Hey, this is your song! And she started singing My Ciroma! I laughed so hard! I had been mortified to go in there in my condition, and it just did me so good to have that laugh!”
“That was one of the greatest things about Joy,” she says. “She could always look past me at a low moment and know that I was more than that. She just met me wherever I was and cast a vision for me and told me that it would get better. She would remind me, ‘You’re only at 6 weeks. You’re only at 3 months. You’re doing great. Don’t worry if you’re having a bad day – just keep doing the work and hang on.’ She is your cheerleader all the way. ‘You go, girl. Hang in there, you’re going to have setbacks. It’s OK, we’re not going to leave you there.’”
“I wouldn’t have gotten through all of that without her,” says Christina. “My recovery would have stalled. She saw me as a human and she cared about me. She would text me or make room on her schedule if I needed it. She pulled me though. And the other people at KCP – both the staff and other patients – helped me too. My PT time was my social time. My friends had written me off, but I could go there and laugh We could talk about movies, vacations, whatever. It was such an uplifting atmosphere where everyone was always so kind. I always wanted to be there.”
“Now, it’s been a year post-surgery, and I’m doing all the things! I actually took my kids to Disney. I can go out on the boat. We’re living again! Five years ago, I never thought any of this would be possible. She gave me my life back.”
Christina is also now attending water fitness classes at the YMCA 3-4 several mornings a week. Additionally, she continues to have monthly sessions at KCP. “I don’t want to fall backwards, and I’d like to be doing even more in another year, which I now believe is possible.”
“Christina had such a long journey before she came to KCP,” says Joy. “I am honored to have been part of her recovery and was I thrilled to see pictures of her water skiing this past summer. Less than a year ago she could not sit on the couch to read to her children. She is an example of ‘never give up’ and willingness to go the extra mile. Congrats Christina!”
