Cindy

When your back problems first start?

My back issue happened starting in 2022. I woke up one day and I felt crooked. Nobody noticed, nobody said anything, so I carried on with exercising and that seemed to get rid of it at least for a while. And then it came back again in 2023, and this time it didn't go away. I tried Physical Therapy for several months and it just wasn't going away.

At my annual exam in 2024, my GP noticed immediately when I walked through his door that I was very crooked and wanted to know what was going on. And so I told him that was the main reason why I was there. He ordered x-rays for me and those x-rays were taken and then everything happened from there.

How did you hear about Dr. Geck?

I heard about Dr. Geck thanks to the physical therapist who I was working with. I've been in Austin for about 10 years now, and I've worked with her for about eight of those years, so we had developed a really close relationship and when I asked my GP to send me to physical therapy, I specifically asked for her.

And so she knew me, she knew my body, and she knew my work ethic. The back doctor told her, "I can't help her." And my physical therapist said, "What do you think? Do you think she should be with Dr. Geck over in the spine clinic?" And he said, "Yes, that's exactly where she should be."

What was your first appointment with Dr. Geck like?

My first visit with Dr. Geck I didn't know what to expect coming in. He introduced himself and immediately he had me go through the history of "How did you come here? How did you come to hear about me?" And so once I mentioned who I was doing physical therapy with, that broke the ice right away. And it was, "Okay, so you're working with Joey, that's great!"

He had me walk right away, touch my toes if I could. They had taken x-rays. They did 3D x-rays when I came in, so he pulled those up. He was very concerned because the x-rays that I had done in May of 2023, and now this was November of 2023, there was a huge decrease or a huge change in my spine for the worse. He was very concerned about that.

I talked to him a lot about how mobility was really important to me and I didn't want to lose that, so the conversation then switched to surgery right away. He talked to me a lot about the advantage of doing surgery when you're in really good health. I had just turned 70, so I was in that age range between 70 and 80. He talked to me a lot about how fast things can change in terms of your health in that timeframe and especially if you leave it until you go closer to the age of 80.

I think what I liked about Dr. Geck the most was that he didn't push me in one direction or the other. He really did let me do the talking and he guided me through my thinking process. I trusted my physical therapist and because she thought so highly of him, and I had already, before I came into my meeting with him, I had already gone on his website and I had listened to all his videos and I had read about him. I read that people came in from all over the world to have surgery with him, and that was really impressive. I was really impressed that he also donated his time to young children and doing surgeries on young kids, and he has this foundation that he founded and that was really impressive to me anyway. For all of those reasons I came in with a lot of respect for him.

How did your recovery go immediately after surgery?

After the surgery I knew they were going to come in and get me up walking the next day, and I was a little bit afraid of that, but that went well. They put the walker in front of me and I was able to stand and walk around the bed to the recliner and they asked me to sit in the recliner for 30 minutes. I was able to do that. And then they came back and had me walk back into bed and I did that. And they said, "Great, we'll come back this afternoon and we'll do a little bit more walking." And that was a miracle to me that I was able to do that. He came to see me in the hospital several days after that, and I asked him, "How do you feel the surgery went?" And he said, "It went great, Cindy. It really went great." And I said, "Yeah, it's because you're a great surgeon." So those are the things I remember and appreciate about Dr. Geck.

How are you doing now in terms of your daily activities?

To date, I can walk on my own. I can pick things up from the floor. I can reach into cabinets to get things, into the refrigerator to get things. I can drive. I started swimming. It's not pretty, but it's coming.

Would you recommend Dr. Geck to other patients?

I would highly recommend Dr. Geck to anybody thinking about this type of surgery. He knows what he's doing. He's very precise in everything he does in the way his x-rays are done. If you go in to have any type of a procedure, a myelogram, everybody knows that Dr. Geck is really picky, and I would much rather have a doctor who's very picky and precise than someone who doesn't really care. And Dr. Geck really cares and so do all of his team. They all care about his patients, and you feel that going through this whole process, you feel like part of the Geck family. And so yes, I would highly recommend him and his team without any reservation at all.