Anastasia Hanifin

Last summer I was looking forward to an amazing summer and I could not wait. I was going to be attending three camps with many of my closest friends.

While I was at my first camp, however, I broke my left fourth toe unexpectedly while getting out of a swimming pool. I originally brushed it off and kept walking and running as usual until my foot swelled up to twice its size and my camp director had to take me to the hospital. The doctors told me my toe was broken and I needed to be careful but I would be able to go to my next camp, one week later.

When I left the first camp, I told my friends that I would see them in about four days but I first needed to get my foot checked out by another doctor. We stopped in Rochester, NY to visit my cousins and were planning on continuing to Binghamton, NY to grab the rest of the camp stuff for both me and my younger sister. While in Rochester, we went to a local medical office to get my toe checked out. While we were there, I was told that I would have to have surgery on my toe to prevent arthritis and chronic pain for the rest of my life. When I was told this information, I could not believe what I heard!

My parents and I decided that we needed a second opinion. We returned to NYC and met Dr. Fabricant at HSS. He took one look at the x-Rays and confirmed what the previous doctor had said. I needed surgery very soon to prevent the toe from healing in the wrong way. Not only was I going to miss the rest of my camps, but I am a dancer and I was worried about what laying around for six or more weeks would do to my body! Besides receiving the great news about having to miss my camps, I also had to face my absolute worst fear, needles.

When I told my friends, they could not believe that four days after I last saw them, I was having surgery and would miss camp! To make this situation even more unbelievable, Dr. Fabricant told me that this was a one in a million kind of fracture!

I felt that my summer was ruined, however, thanks to Dr. Fabricant and the wonderful team at HSS, I was able to go to my scout camp for the last weekend and I was very grateful. Dr. Fabricant realized how important this camp was to me and worked with me and my parents to help make this happen, while at the same time not compromising my healing after surgery. I am so lucky to have met Dr. Fabricant as he really understood the medicine as well as the who am I as a person.

About six months later I was back dancing, fully healed. Thank you so much Dr. Fabricant!