HealthEast® Quality Data
“I’m so much better, my son calls me the bionic woman.”
HealthEast Spine Care at St. John’s Hospital patient Jennifer Brindley
After an automobile accident resulted in an extruded disc in Jennifer Brindley’s neck, she became dependent on a cane to walk, had given up golf, and thought she’d never regain her full range of motion. “I was just in my third season of golfing, and I was such a natural — I’d already gotten a hole-in-one! But then a driver ran a stop sign and T-boned the car I was in,” she remembers. “I went to the hospital, and after my X-rays, the doctor came in and said, ‘Well, your neck is straight.’ I said, ‘Oh, good’ — except then I found out it’s not supposed to be straight.”
Jennifer’s doctor referred her to Dr. Stefano Sinicropi. “Dr. Sinicropi put my MRIs up and showed me the extruded disc in my neck. This one little thing affected my whole body: I had muscle spasms, couldn’t shampoo my hair, couldn’t nod or shake my head. I had such a limited range of motion. So when he told me about disc replacement surgery, I elected to go ahead and get it fixed.”
The damage to the disc in Jennifer’s neck reduced the cushion between the vertebrae of her spine, causing pain with every movement. With disc replacement surgery, she had a chance to regain her full range of movement, as well as eliminate her constant discomfort.
“I had the surgery in mid-August. While I was there, I felt like the St. John’s staff made my comfort their utmost importance — everyone was so caring and professional. I could feel the relief when I woke up in the recovery room — that sharp pang in my neck was gone. I was out of the hospital the very next day, walking around like nothing had happened, and went back to work in mid-September, full time with no restrictions.”
The surgery allowed Jennifer to get back to what she enjoyed in life, plus gave her a new outlook on the kind of medical care she wants to receive. “I felt like Dr. Sinicropi really cared about me — he was interested in my life. And after he took care of me, I got so much better, my son started calling me the bionic woman.”
