Ann L. Buttenwieser

Save perhaps for November 5, 1935, the first day of my life, May 13, 2014, when Dr. Frank Cammisa lavished his great surgical skills upon me, may have been the best day of my life. The surgery consisted of a laminectomy, which transported me from a state of constant, almost-debilitating, back pain to a state totally free from back pain. I came into Dr. Cammisa’s care perhaps three months before the surgery, when he described to me in exhaustive and frightening detail both my preoperative condition, indicating why the back pain was so intense and unremitting, and then precisely how he would remedy my condition. His description of my condition and of the correction he would make was so thorough that, if it were anatomically possible, I think I could have operated on myself. Just prior to the surgery, I had a long and informative interview with Dr. Joseph Oxendine, the anesthesiologist assigned to my case and a frequent collaborator of Dr. Cammisa in the operating room. By the end of the interview, I was fully informed of how I would be sedated, anesthetized and managed during surgery. I instantaneously gained total confidence in Dr. Oxendine. The surgery took place at precisely the appointed hour and was performed with great skill and dispatch and the anesthesia administered so effectively that I cannot remember any part of the operation. I recovered from the operation quickly and easily. I am now free of back pain, able to walk without inhibition and looking forward to the moment at the end of the month when I can once again bend over and touch my toes – or, more usefully, tie my shoelaces. In my view, Frank Cammisa is a miracle worker.