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It was about four years ago and I had excruciating pain when I tried to walk. It started with when I would get into my car to drive, I couldn’t lift my leg. Or if I went to put on my socks or my pants to go to work I could not lift my leg. There was pain in the groin and I had pain in my hip and in my back. It felt like lower back pain and it got worse and worse. It started getting to where it was hard to get out of the bed in the middle of the night if I wanted to get up. Then I started using a can. I’d use a cane, actually, I was a dancer for many years and then I was working in the entertainment industry still even though I was older, too old to dance. I danced for my whole life in production shows on the Las vegas strip, went to the Philippians, the Bahamas, Chicago, London. So I traveled the world dancing and then it got to where, after all these years of acrobating, I couldn’t even walk!
Then I started using the four prong walker to go to the restroom in the middle of the night or when I wanted to check my mail. I could hardly make it to the mailbox. I used to take walks around the block with my boyfriend – I couldn’t even take walks anymore! So then it got so bad that I borrowed my dad’s walker and then it got to where my brother said “why don’t you use dad’s motorized cart?”. He had a motorized cart and I started using that and took walks around the neighborhood with my boyfriend in the motorized cart because I couldn’t walk anymore. It got that bad!
When I went to the grocery market, I would use a motorized cart. Then all of a sudden I ran into somebody and they had stitches in their knee. And I said “oh it looks like you had knee surgery?” and the guy said, “yes, I went to Dr. Michael J Crovetti!”. And I thought, “wow it looks like you’re doing pretty good now,” and he said, “yes, he’s a good doctor!” So I thought ‘I’m going to make an appointment’.
So I called the office and when I called they said Dr. Crovetti was all filled up. He had no surgeries available. No open appointments to even look at me! I said, “you’re kidding, that makes me want to cry…” I said “I feel like I want to cry, I can’t even walk now!” And the nurse said, “well… let me check and see if we could possibly find a cancellation for you.” She came back to the phone and said “You know what, we can squeeze you in.” So I came to Dr. Crovetti’s office and that day Dr. Crovetti looked at my x-ray and said, “You have bone on bone!”. I had bone on bone and that’s what was causing me all the pain. He said “I can fix this.” And when he said he could fix it he sounded very sincere, he sounded very determined and that he was confident he could fix it! So I trusted him and I scheduled surgery that day.
I never miss work so I was kind of nervous to go to work and tell them I’m taking off to get surgery. So I went into work that day and, sure enough, they said fine, you’ve been with us a long time, we’ll give you the time off so I scheduled my surgery and it’s the best thing I evere did! The only thing is I wish I would have done it sooner.
Now, I have no pain. It’s been exactly four years since my first surgery. My second surgery was about three and a half years ago. I did one surgery on June 28, 2017. The second surgery was November 15,2017. Since surgery, every day I am so grateful to Dr. Crovetti and I actually get up every day and say “Thank you!” for making me be able to walk again, let alone being able to dance. Just being able to walk again, it’s a miracle! I’m so grateful!