Great surgeon in G.D. MI -and a warning about a not so great one one

[heartland]

I'd like to recommend DR. Cassidy at the
Helen devos childrens hospital to anyone in or around MI. Very nice and listens to what you say . He is my orthopedic surgeon and I am very happy with how everything turned out when I had my surgery. They are very respectful or personal wishes .Which is sadly not the case at every hospital I've been to-
I had gone to the University of MI and saw Dr. vanderhauve [sp?}
and all she ever pushed was surgery-surgery-surgery and when my curve got to the point were I needed it we agreed to
surgery on the condition that no blood transfusions were to be used -the staff and Dr. became very mean and rude to us [I won't go into details]. So we decided to go with Helen devos and I had surgery on the 21st of last dec and lost 1/4 of a cup of blood [cell saver was not even used] And
in Mar I had to have a second surgery because I fell a few times at home and a screw came out .
This time I lost 2TBSP of blood and recovered very quickly I am now horse back riding [something dr.vanderhauve said I would never be able to do]
and virtually pain free Please consider them--- the hospital in G.D. also helped find us FREE lodging for my family and they take lots of insurgences [including medicaid and special childrens health care]
and I also would like to say my curve went from 95* to a 33* curve [dr.vaunder hauve said she wouldn't push it past a 60*]

BEFORE: http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5102527_n.jpg

AFTER:http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2385748_n.jpg

[JenniferG]

Wow Anna, you had a whopper curve there. Glad to hear you so happy with your surgeon and your result.

[Snoopy]

My daughter was seen by Dr. Vanderhave when she was at Penn State Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA. I found her to be very unprofessional.....she seemed to always be playing with her hair, not looking at us when she talked, etc. But on a medical side, I was not impressed either. My daughter's Kyphosis was 79* (normal is about 40*) and a Scoliosis of about 36* at the time. She was only concerned with the Scoli....never addressed the Kyphosis which out of 5 doctors we saw, she was the only one who thought it wasn't a concern!

We saw her only once and moved on and found a fantastic doctor at the same hospital.

Glad you are now on the road to recovery...no more falling!

Mary Lou

[mariaf]

With so many excellent surgeons out there, Dr. Vanderhave sounds like one to avoid like the plague.

[Ballet Mom]

I'm happy you are now painfree and riding horses. Great news!

However, before Dr. Vanderhave gets trashed on this forum, it would be worthwhile pointing out a few things regarding your criticisms of her.

1. Your current doctor is now stating that your lumbar curve is smaller than your thoracic curve? Hmmm. Is he not measuring the shift of the lower lumbar vertebrae? My daughter has a curve that hovers around thirty degrees, and it is much smaller than your lumbar curve, realistically. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

2. "Bloodless" spine surgeries may reduce the number of people requiring blood transfusions, however, if someone is insistent on no transfusion during the procedure, apparently the alternative if there is heavy bleeding is to stop the surgery midcourse. Some surgeons might object to this, and I can't say I would blame them especially due to liability reasons. It was good that you found a surgeon that was willing to abide by your wishes. That is part of the process of finding a surgeon you feel comfortable operating on you.

3. Most surgeons want to operate on scoliosis cases much prior to reaching 95 degrees. The surgeries become much more difficult both physically demanding and in risk, and the results for the patient are typically not as good cosmetically. So this is probably where the pressure for surgery was coming from.

Anyhow, just wanted to defend the surgeon a bit as there are probably valid reasons for her actions.

Have fun with your horses! :-)

[Pooka1]

1. Your current doctor is now stating that your lumbar curve is smaller than your thoracic curve? Hmmm. Is he not measuring the shift of the lower lumbar vertebrae? My daughter has a curve that hovers around thirty degrees, and it is much smaller than your lumbar curve, realistically. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

I agree her L curve is clearly >>30*. There is obviously some misunderstanding there with the measurement. The T curve might be as advertised (33*).

In any case, the L curve is very clearly >> the T curve. Much.

[heartland]

"1. Your current doctor is now stating that your lumbar curve is smaller than your thoracic curve? Hmmm. Is he not measuring the shift of the lower lumbar vertebrae? My daughter has a curve that hovers around thirty degrees, and it is much smaller than your lumbar curve, realistically. Anybody have any thoughts on this?"

actually my T curve is smaller now after my surgery the the L however I've never had any problem with it at all and it was not fused the problem I was having was with the L curve [it went from 58* to 88* in 8 months and then to 95* in 3]
the reason for the confusion is my upper curve is very flexible so it the curve looks different from different angles but my surgeon believes it will be around 35-38* once everything is completely fused and L 35-40*

[Ballet Mom]

Wow, what an amazingly fast progression!! No wonder Dr. Vanderhave was pushing for surgery!

Glad you had such a good outcome! :-)

[heartland]

2. "Bloodless" spine surgeries may reduce the number of people requiring blood transfusions, however, if someone is insistent on no transfusion during the procedure, apparently the alternative if there is heavy bleeding is to stop the surgery midcourse. Some surgeons might object to this, and I can't say I would blame them especially due to liability reasons. It was good that you found a surgeon that was willing to abide by your wishes. That is part of the process of finding a surgeon you feel comfortable operating on you.

)

there are a lot of new technology out there for bloodless surgeries and helen devos was the first in the country to do major pediatric bloodless surgeries -and the surgeons PERFER to do bloodless because of the side effcts to blood trans fusions .
But considering the fact that I had two surgeries and both time I lost a VERY small amount [the second surgery's blood loss was not even recorded since it was so little]
And another thing I love about that hospital is I met everyone before my surgery,
The blood evoidence team ,the surgeons [there are two that do it but you have a
primary surgeon-mines dr cassidy] , The nurses and the anesthesiologist -
were as with the U of M I only met Dr. vanderhave and the anesthesiologist wouldn't meet with us at all - [this is after we had scheduled a surgery with them]