If you clicked on the animation (not at all gross, but quite interesting) in Nancy's previous post, you'll get an idea of the 'mechanical engineering' side of this procedure. I could relate to it right away, because at work we have a lot of bakery racks that magically bend out of shape when in the presence of truck drivers, all of whom apparently have the Uri Geller-like ability to distort metal objects without actually touching them. This miraculous occurrence is coincidentally accompanied by the same sly look of practiced innocence. Go figure.
The repair method we employ at the shop takes a few minutes of careful bracing, followed by the application of sudden and precise force at the strategic point of the bend. The exact amount force is calibrated according to to the size of the guy jumping on the bent rack, the height from which he jumped, etc. I don't want to bore you here with an overly technical scientific description.
Clearly though, the approach used by Dr. Lenke at the hospital is even more precise and effective, especially considering that welding is not an option for them. Or jumping, probably.
Click to enlarge these.
Here are a couple of the x-ray images of Nancy's spine before and after - They were shot at different scales, so I tried to give a realistic comparison of the height gained.
The most amazing thing to me is the way they were able to clean up her right side, shown above on the leftmost photo, on the left side. The doctor described it as 'a mess' with her rib cage resting on her tilted hip and her spine so restrictive on the spinal cord that it was creating stenosis and weakness in her legs.Despite the pain and weakness following the surgery, she can tell already that her legs are stronger. Now that's all fixed and unlike our bakery racks, it will stay fixed.
I'll leave some good news for Nancy to relate.
D
Very cool pics! And the surgery clip was amazing! xoxox peg
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