[MUSIC]
The heart of soldier's,
it's filled with love.
It's filled with loyalty, integrity.
As a veteran I've learned
to overcome adversities.
I've suffered lots of hard times.
Nothing that I have suffered from in
the military or before the military,
Took me out of commission
the way that the back pain did.
When you're wearing your
full battle rattle,
which is your Kevlar helmet,
your vest, your elbow pads,
your knee pads, you have over
80 pounds of gear on you.
You're doing this every day.
You are running through
the streets chasing people.
It begins to compress your spine and
do a lot of damage to your spine.
>> When I first met Rick,
it was amazing.
He was, he went to the gym every
single day, he was a strong man,
very active.
But when his back injury happened,
all those things were put on hold.
It hurt too much for him.
And it was heartbreaking to lose
some of those essences of our
relationship.
>> The pain would actually get so
intense and get to a point where I
would just fall over and I would
drop down to the floor and I'd think
to myself, I don't know how much
longer I can take this pain.
>> [INAUDIBLE] How you doing?
>> As soon as he came in,
I saw this young,
bright guy coming in, full of smile,
full of life and everything.
He actually touched my back and
he was one of the first doctors that
actually touched my back
in over five years.
>> When Mr. Schetter saw me,
he's done it all.
He's done therapy,
he tried injections,
he had a surgery already.
And unfortunately he's been put
on a high narcotic medication.
You can see it in his eyes and
in listening to him That
he was at his wits end and
that his last hope was here with us.
>> [INAUDIBLE] good, hold that.
>> Sorry.
>> That's okay.
>> What they had
found was that I was,
i had no bone to bone
connection in my spine.
And I had a little bit of a shift
where the lower part shifted forward
there and that's where I was
getting the nerve pain from.
I had a couple ruptures, bulges.
Within the first meeting,
he's telling me,
I think we need to do a fusion,
a cushion, and a decompression.
And that's exactly what he did.
And as soon as I woke up,
I looked down, and then I said,
my legs don't hurt anymore.
It was a miracle,
Doctor Neuman is by far my hero.
>> So, when Rick saw me
at his six week visit
he was ready to get back there and
do everything that he wanted.
Unfortunately though,
I hold him back a little bit.
Cuz I wait til three months to allow
him time for the fusion to heal up.
And then I let them be as active and
do what they wanna do.
So I saw him back at the next visit.
He was telling how he
was back swimming.
How he's back walking his dog and
doing all the things
that he enjoys life.
And those are the joys that I
get out of doing the surgery,
it's patients that
come back that tell me
that they're doing the things
that they enjoy or
doing at the competitive level
that they want to be at.
>> We could have gone to a hospital
that was closer to our area, but
with a name like Johns Hopkins and
their reputation,
it was definitely worth the travel
>> Full time for
us to get that experience.
Would you deny traveling an extra
hour out of your way to guarantee
that you have some of the best
care in the entire world, with
doctors that are teaching tomorrow's
doctors, our future doctors?
Absolutely, absolutely,
you drive an extra
hour to make sure that you don't
have to go for a third back surgery.
So that this back surgery
is the one that fixed you
[MUSIC]
