Louis Cieselski

Let me start by letting anyone looking at this information what kind of a person Dr. Girardi is!

He is a doctor that really listens to his patients and thank God is very gifted and humble in his profession. He can look at a CAT scan and see right away what is going on. He really cares so much about his patients and the people that come to see him. He is not into telling a person you must have this surgery now! He will always work on doing the least amount of trauma so a person can recover. I have yet to meet such a caring surgeon and his great gifted staff that guides each person with respect and care through out there treatment best staff I have ever met.

Any person dealing with back pain, I understand how hard that may be and how scared one must be to have you spine worked on. However, I look at it this way - it's kind of building a building that the foundation was not put into place correctly. Whatever the case, each person is very unique, and he tailors himself to that patient's needs.

So here is my story - I first met Dr. Girardi back in 2012 when my T12 fractured on its own. The pain in my back and rib cage was very bad. He did a kyphoplasty on my vertebrate and it started to heal. However 6 months later, my L1 fractured just on its own without me doing anything wrong. Dr. Girardi did another kyphoplasty on that bone.

In 2014, my L4 fractured and I had to wait until 2016 to get that fixed due to being on very high painkillers. I had a posterior fusion done on that vertebrate and was working on getting better, when in 2018 my L2-L3 fractured and the pain was really not your normal spine pain. I had my fourth surgery with Dr. Girardi on July 20th, 2018 and he did an anterior fusion with cage placement on L1-L2 ,L3-L4, and also a posterior fusion from L5-S1 to T12. I felt great after that surgery. Pain I had in my feet for 22 years from a spine surgery done by another doctor in 1996 on L5-S1 was all gone and I was able to walk and stand straight with no pain.

However, 34 days after that surgery my original T12 vertebra moved. I felt the movement and within seconds I had pain going around my whole diaphragm. I was in crazy pain for 11 months and on June 27th, 2019 Dr. Girardi and Dr. Fantini did another anterior fusion and cage placement of T11-T12 and T12-L1 with a posterior fusion up to T4 with rods and screws. I was in the hospital for 7 days and went to a rehab facility to just rest because I live alone and I needed to be in a controlled environment.

On July 5th, 2019 when I was just 8 days post-op I got out of bed and noticed that the pain in the diaphragm was totally gone.

I now need to start going to physical therapy once everything fuses, and work hard on building back all my muscles that have not been working for the last 7 years.

Thank you Dr. Girardi for all your help and for being God's messenger to fix my spine. I am forever in your debt. May God bless you and your wonderful staff for everything the last 7 years.