Kemp

Can you tell me about your professional background and the activities you enjoy outside of work?

I'm a lawyer. I've been a lawyer for 33 years and I enjoy doing that. But also for extracurricular activities I play golf, I play tennis, I play pickleball, snow ski, wakeboard.

When did your neck problems first begin?

My neck problems started when I was in my 20s. Before I went to law school, I worked at a job where I was on the phone a lot—and this was back before they had the little mechanism to hold the phone up to your ear—so my neck was cocked a lot. It just slowly got worse over time and over time, but it was never something I felt like I needed to have seen about until I was probably in my 40s.

What happened in your 40s that made you seek medical attention?

I had a really bad situation where I'd either slept wrong or something had happened, and I felt like I needed to have it seen about.

What symptoms were you experiencing at the time?

The symptoms I had were neck pain down my left arm, pain in my neck. When I was driving, I couldn't turn my neck to look over my shoulder—I had to turn my whole body. It was primarily on my left side. I could not play tennis or golf. I couldn’t really do anything at that point.

How did these symptoms affect your daily life and wellbeing?

It was depressing. If you can't do anything exercise-wise, you put on weight and you're just stagnant. So it affected my daily life, it affected my work. You're in pain all day. You're sitting there and you have to raise your arm to try to make the pain go away. I would have to sleep with my arm on a pillow to have it elevated. And so again, that's what prompted me to come see Dr. Stokes.

What concerns did you have about surgery?

The biggest thing that concerned me about the surgery is at that point in my life, I don't think I'd had any type of surgery of that magnitude—where somebody's messing with your spinal cord or with the discs that are around your spinal cord. That makes you nervous, which is why I felt good about Dr. Stokes.

What procedure did Dr. Stokes recommend?

Disc replacement was a fairly new procedure where they took the bad disc out and they put an entirely new synthetic disc in your neck—just what I have.

How would you describe your recovery experience?

The recovery experience I had was pretty easy, frankly. I had to wear the foam neck brace for a couple of weeks or so. And after that was over with, I was basically back to normal again.

Have you recommended Dr. Stokes to others?

I have. I've recommended several people to come see him. My wife has come to see him about her back issues. I've had several good friends that have come to see Dr. Stokes—they weren’t in this building back then, they were in a different building—but they came to see him, and all of them have said thank you for sending me his way.