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The Best Kind
of Rejection
Y ou have spinal stenosis,” they said.
“I know. I’ve had that for years,”
said Pam Markham.
“You have arthritis,” they said.
“I know,” said Pam. “But that’s not the problem.”
Pam was getting desperate. For months she’d
been experiencing terrible pain under her left thigh
and no one could tell her why. Everyone kept talking
about her back problems, but Pam felt sure
it was something else causing the agony in her leg.
One orthopedist gave her prednisone, which did
nothing for the pain. Another gave her oxycodone,
which she refused to take. (“I’m a psychologist.
I see people with drug issues all the time.”)
A pain management doctor gave her a prescription
for medical marijuana and two epidurals.
Nothing helped.
Then Pam’s primary care physician recommended
physical therapy, and things went from bad to worse.
“I was walking when we started, and after seven
sessions with the PT, I was in a wheelchair,” she says.
Pam spent three agonizing months in the wheelchair.
“I’m so grateful to Kelly. I sent
her flowers. She made the whole
procedure very easy. If I had a
question, she was always available
and she didn’t act like I was being
annoying, which is what you get
at a lot of places.”
— PAM MARKHAM
Kelly Patchak
Client Specialist at Johns
Hopkins Hospital
Healthnetwork Exceptional
Care Award Winner, 2022
18 Healthnetwork Foundation | www.healthnetworkfoundation.org
“I had to have people drive me around. I had to have
groceries delivered. I became totally dependent for
the first time in my life. It was bad. And the pain was
horrendous. It affected my sleep, my mood, and my ability
to work. I was getting to a point of feeling hopeless.
This was going to be the rest of my life?”
Three Doctors, One Opinion
After three doctors told Pam she needed a spinal fusion
surgery, she reluctantly agreed. She braced herself to
begin interviewing surgeons. “I felt if I’m going to have
this done, I might as well go to the best place.”
But she feared it wouldn’t be easy. A long-time
Florida resident, she started her search close to home.
A hospital in Miami told her it would be at least two
months before she could get in. Pam couldn’t fathom
the idea of going on for two more months like this.
She wanted to interview several teaching hospitals and
choose the right one. But how, when it was all she could
do to survive the day?
Enter Doctor Number Four
A Vistage Chair made a call to Healthnetwork Foundation
on Pam’s behalf, and she was connected with Kelly Patchak,
Healthnetwork liaison at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Kelly
helped Pam organize all her medical records and arranged
for an appointment a few days later with Dr. Nicholas
Theodore, a renown neurosurgeon and director of the
Neurosurgical Spine Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore. Pam quickly booked a flight.
After looking at Pam’s MRI and X-Rays, Dr. Theodore
gave Pam the best rejection she could ever hope to
receive: “You’re not a candidate for surgery.”
“I was in absolute shock,” says Pam. “After being told
by three doctors that I needed surgery, I just couldn’t
believe it.”
Instead of confirming those three opinions,
Dr. Theodore verified what Pam suspected all along:
her long-time back issues were not the cause of her
agonizing leg pain. And instead of surgery, he offered a
much more conservative explanation and solution:
He explained that a compressed nerve was the cause of
her pain, and prescribed medication for nerve pain.