At 82, most people are slowing down. Not Anne. For her, life has always had a rhythm. She can remember being just four years old, twirling across her living room while her mother played piano music on the record player. Dance became the language through which she expressed her truest self.
“I’m a dancer,” Anne says. “I dance from my heart. A lot of people dance, but they aren’t dancers. I can tell when someone is just doing steps. For me, it’s who I am.”
That passion carried Anne from local studios to national and world ballroom competitions. But one Sunday morning, everything changed. After performing in a showcase the day before, she woke with sudden, excruciating back pain. It was so severe she had to call a neighbor to take her to the emergency room.
A sudden stop
“I had no pain the day before,” she recalls. “But I woke up and couldn’t move without terrible pain. I’d always heard, ‘Don’t have back surgery, avoid it at all costs.’ But I was in so much pain I would have done anything.”
At the Roper St. Francis Emergency Room, doctors couldn’t see anything on the X-rays and referred her for further care. Eventually, testing revealed a bulging disc pinching a nerve. The pain was relentless. She was referred to Dr. Morgan Stuart, a neurosurgeon with Roper St. Francis Physician Partners.
A surgeon who listens
What Anne remembers most about her first visit with Dr. Stuart wasn’t the scans or the medical terms. It was his warmth.
“He cared about me as a person. I wasn’t just a patient with or a number,” she says. “He explained everything in terms I could understand. He told me he had done thousands of these surgeries, and that gave me confidence.”
For Anne, one concern stood above the rest: Would she ever dance again? “I told him, ‘I am a ballroom dancer. I do it at a very high level.’ And he reassured me: yes, you’ll be able to dance like you always have.”
Back in step
Dr. Stuart performed surgery to stabilize Anne’s spine and relieve the nerve pressure. Recovery wasn’t instant, but Anne’s longtime dance partner, Andrey, had also undergone back surgery years before. He knew what it would take to help her regain confidence. Step by step, he helped ease her back onto the floor.
“There are times when we’re dancing, and you just get in the zone,” Anne says. “It’s like nothing else exists – just the music and the movement. To be able to feel that again after surgery has been incredible.”
Even if she hadn’t been able to return to competition, Anne says the freedom from pain has been a gift. “I can move again. I can do things I used to do. That’s wonderful.”
Dancing forward
Anne doesn’t know how many more years of dancing she has ahead. What she does know is that she’ll keep moving as long as she can put one foot in front of the other. “I’ll dance until I can’t anymore,” she says with a smile.
Thanks to expert care and compassionate support, Anne has reclaimed her passion and, step by step, is choreographing a new chapter – one where she regains what was lost and grows into an even more confident dancer.
Ready to find relief?
If back pain is keeping you from the life you love, don’t wait. Roper St. Francis Healthcare offers same day and next day appointments with spine specialists taking care of the entire spine from top to bottom. Call (843) 723-8823 to schedule an appointment.