Dale Gross, a legal secretary, is a vibrant redhead whose green eyes can pool either with laughter or with tears.
Lately, though, her tears have been of joy and relief.
“I can”™t get over it,” she says. “I have zero pain.”
When Gross was 13 years old, she was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis (from the Greek for “step” or “slide”) ”“ a condition in which a fractured vertebra slips out of place, threatening the sciatic and other nerves.
“It”™s a congenital thing, no big thing,” she says of the genetic predisposition. Except, of course, for the ever-increasing pain that made it impossible for the sports-loving Yorktown, N.Y., resident to concentrate on anything else.
Then she met spinal surgeons Rudolph F. Taddonio and Krishn M. Sharma, who operated on her in October.
Now, she says, “I”™m ready to run a marathon; I”™m ready to live.”
Taddonio and Sharma ”“ who share a practice in White Plains, N.Y., and operate at Stamford Hospital in Stamford ”“ are at the forefront of diagnosing and treating various spinal problems, including scoliosis. (That”™s a curve of the spine with a twist, Sharma says, demonstrating on a model.) You could say they have your back.
Taddonio was one of 40 spinal surgeons nationwide to refine the ScoliScore, a genetic test to predict the risk of scoliosis progressing. And he and Sharma were the first spine doctors in the tri-state area to use the Stealth Station, an image-guided system that enables them to pinpoint the placement of the screws and the rods that stabilize the patient”™s spine, thereby avoiding nerve damage.
“It hasn”™t been universally accepted,” says Taddonio, the quintessential professorial doc with his shock of white hair, bright pink-print bow tie and lab coat. “(Stealth) is a kind of fiddly toy. At first, it”™s like anything else. There”™s a learning curve.”
Still, Stealth is well-worth the effort, the doctors say.
“It adds an element of safety to the procedure,” says Sharma, who bears a resemblance to the actor Colin Farrell. “It gives you a three-dimensional correlation.”
Gross”™ 4 ½-hour surgery involved not only the use of Stealth for placing rods and screws in her spine but also the harvesting of bits of bone. These were then mixed with a bone morphogenic protein and inserted between the vertebrae to create spinal fusion. (Gross wears an external bone growth stimulator.)
The case of another patient, Aroub Bayazid, was even more complicated, Taddonio says, because she had a herniated disc as well as a spondylolisthesis.
Like Dale Gross, Bayazid is an active, passionate woman. (The Greenwich resident ”“ who restructures loans and leases for Equilease Financial Services in South Norwalk ”“ favors swimming and Pilates, while Gross adores horseback-riding.) Like Gross, Bayazid found the quality of her life increasingly affected by pain. And like Gross, she understood that surgery came with risks.
“It”™s a scary decision to make,” Bayazid says, relaxing in her Greenwich townhouse beneath a group of jewel-colored Persian manuscript prints that reflect a taste for Middle Eastern cultures. (She arrived from Lebanon in 1981.)
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Bayazid felt comfortable with Taddonio and Sharma.
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“I don”™t like to go to the doctor”™s office and leave feeling I didn”™t get any answers,” she says. “They are brilliant and very available. I call them up all the time.”
“They”™re phenomenal,” Gross adds. “You can ask them the stupidest question. They”™re very social.”
Indeed, when Gross had a spinout during a winter storm, Taddonio hustled her into the office just to make sure her spine wasn”™t compromised.
He says care has to begin with the patient”™s first visit to the office.?“You can”™t just say, ”˜You need surgery”™,” he says. “You have to explain everything. We have a staff with a nurse that is our second line of support. You can always talk to us.”
Perhaps the doctors”™ backgrounds have something to do with their meticulous bedside manners.
Both are tinkerers, after a fashion. Sharma, who joined Scoliosis and Spinal Surgery in 2009 after having spent four years working with Taddonio, says he was the type of teen who took lawnmowers apart.
“I like to work with my hands,” says Sharma, who gardens at his New Canaan home, where he lives with his wife and two young children.?Taddonio ”“ director of orthopedics at Stamford Hospital as well as director of scoliosis and spinal surgery at New York Medical College ”“ likes to sail wooden boats. (He, too, lives in New Canaan with his wife; their two children are now grown.)
Both men also came to medicine from its front lines. Sharma”™s first medical job was as an emergency medical technician. Taddonio, who grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., was an orderly at St. John”™s Riverside Hospital there.
And what did being an orderly teach him?
“Compassion,” he says.
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Spinal tips
Want to keep your lumbar area limber? It turns out that what”™s good for your general health is good for your spine, too, according to M.D.s Rudolph Taddonio and Krishn Sharma.
“You should maintain an active lifestyle ”“ walking, swimming,” Sharma says, “and keep your weight down.”
“Smoking is also a factor with back pain,” he adds, “as it interferes with vascular nutrition and affects every tissue in the body.”
Taddonio recommends that we also ensure a sufficient intake of calcium and vitamin D ”“ no easy task as many of us do not sit unprotected in the sun ”“ the primary source of D, or drink milk, which is fortified with the vitamin.
Food sources of vitamin D include egg yolks, salmon and tuna. Broccoli is a good source of calcium. Today, many calcium supplements are fortified with vitamin D.
