HEALTH
62
PATIENT URGES PATIENCE
AFTER CUTTING-EDGE SURGERY
BY PATTIE DURHAM
BEFORE AFTER
Henry Szmyt’s knees were so swollen due to arthritis (left) that he had to hobble around with a walker at work. After double replacement
surgery (right), Szmyt can do deep knee bends and is back at work.
Bogged down by rheumatoid arthritis and hobbled by
knees that were no longer functioning, Henry Szmyt
knew he had to take drastic action when a walker
became his daily companion. An engineer with several
demanding businesses, as well as a busy life, Szmyt started
researching his health problems on the internet.
“I had pretty severe RA,” Szmyt said, “and my doctors
had no solution except a referral for knee replacement
surgery. The RA pretty much destroyed both knees. They
were not just bone-on-bone; they were bone-in-bone.
I am 74 now. This disease began about two years ago. I
discovered that ages 72-75 is the window for attack by this
form of RA.”
The owner of several companies, including a small manufacturing
company in Port St. Lucie that produces hitches
for RVs, Szmyt is used to spending long days at his plant as
there are few employees. No matter how much it hurt, he
had to get up and go to work. Painfully, he hobbled around
the plant with the aid of a walker, swollen knees buckled
out to the side.
He began to look into the prospect of surgery, but everyone
was doing the off-the-shelf knee replacements and he
was not interested.
“I am an engineer,” Szmyt said, “so I studied up on this.
Then I saw this video on TV. I was going to go where I
could to find this surgery.”
Further research brought him to the ConforMIS website
where looking at this mathematical approach to knee replacement,
he said to himself, “This is for me.”
He was willing to travel anywhere to get this type of knee
replacement. Thinking he might have to travel to New England
where the company is based, Szmyt was amazed to discover
that there was an orthopedic surgeon on the Treasure
Coast who was using this advanced procedure. He contacted
Coastal Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine in Port St. Lucie
for an evaluation. At his first appointment, Szmyt met with
Dr. Edward Rossario’s assistant, Steve Sanders, who took the
pictures then looked at them and said succinctly, “Two knees
are bad. You need them both replaced.”
Szymt laughed as he recalled the visit. Even though he
knew his knees were in bad shape, he was a bit stunned by
Sanders’ short and to the point statement.
What interested Szmyt was that the ConforMIS knees
would be customized for his body structure. “The replacement
parts are different for each knee,” Szmyt said, showing
off his badges of honor (the incision down the front of
each knee). With mathematical precision, the parts are created
>>
from the measurements on the CT scan of each knee,