Marge Yonda

I am an 80 year old mother of 5, grandmother of 11 and I have been athletic all my life. I have run 8 marathons under 4 hours, bicycled across the USA with my husband (4650 miles) and trains on an elliptical trainer.

Seven years ago I had a partial knee replacement at HSS with Dr. Brian Nestor that took me out of road racing, but I got involved in the canine agility sport and now train and handle my two standard poodles, Maggie (8) and Mandy (3).

Agility became an important part of my life but back problems plagued me and I had a laminectomy with Dr. Andrew Sama at HSS about 5 years ago.

This helped for a while, but stenosis and constant pain made running the dogs a painful trial.

I went back to Dr. Sama and he suggested more surgery, but was hesitant to do a fusion because of my age and the fragility of old bones. However, during the operation, two of my discs crumbled and fell out, making fusion a necessary evil. He considered for several minutes and then proceeded to do a fusion (L4, L5 and S1) complete with bone grafting.

I recovered rapidly, continued to exercise and after 10 weeks was doing agility events again with both dogs. I also do Bickram hot yoga – difficult at any age.

I now have twelve screws and bolts and two posts in my lower back. I do not know they are there! I run with the dogs! I have no pain! Dr. Sama and Dr. Nestor are my heroes! I am back in the game!

Sincerely,

Marge Yonda