I met Dr. Feldman when I was at the Paley Institute with my daughter while she was having surgery. My daughter has Pseudoachondroplasia Dwarfism (a dominant gene) like her father. I have Diastrophic Dysplasia Dwarfism (a recessive gene). During one of my daughter’s routine post operative appointments I mentioned to Dr. Feldman that I had been having some numbness and tingling in my feet for quite some time. His response was “that doesn’t sound good, let’s get you in here and I’ll order an MRI to see what’s going on.” After my MRI he showed me how you could clearly see my spinal cord was being compressed in my thoracic area from T-5 down to T-9. Dr. Feldman explained that if I didn’t have it corrected, I was going to get worse and I would slowly become paralyzed. I scheduled my surgery for December 2019. It was a fourteen hour surgery and according to the operative nurses, Dr. Feldman never left my side for more than fifteen minutes. One nurse whispered in my ear, “you have such a good doctor, he’s amazing”.
Dr. Feldman was in every day and when I complained of pain he took care of it immediately and when I say immediately, I am not exaggerating, I’m talking five minutes. Because of my rare type of skeletal dysplasia he also worked with the hospital physical therapists to create goals that would work best for me. After a few days I went to inpatient rehab for four weeks where I had absolutely amazing therapists, nurses and staff! Dr. Chokski was taking care of me while in rehab and like Dr. Feldman, she is also amazing. The food was pretty good too!
Fast forward to today: it’s been about three months and I went from wearing adult diapers to now regular underwear. What may seem trivial to most is huge to me. I can now sleep on my back without pain all night long if I choose to. I can do things like cook without constant back pain. It's amazing that every time I do these things, I now have zero pain! Soon after my surgery in my hospital bed I was lying there and it suddenly occurred to me that I had been lying on my back to sleep and watch tv without pain! I had never been able to just lie on my back for more than five minutes without having to readjust my position because of severe, nagging back pain. My sensation has returned and I am no longer worried about becoming paralyzed.
There are no words to articulate how truly grateful I am. How do you say thank you to somebody who saved you from becoming paralyzed?
Thank you Dr. Feldman, you are truly a gift from God. ❤️
Nicole
