Building Beyond Pain: Bobby's Story

When you expe­ri­ence pain every day, it’s more than just dis­com­fort — it starts to shape how you live your life. You push through, telling your­self it’s just part of get­ting old­er or the job you do. That was Bob­by H.’s sto­ry for near­ly ten years. Surgery felt like too big of a dis­rup­tion, so he kept going — until one day, he couldn’t anymore.

Liv­ing in Pain

Bob­by, 42, owns a cus­tom cab­i­netry busi­ness in Naperville. He’s been installing cab­i­nets since his ear­ly 20s. ​“Lift­ing heavy cab­i­nets all day took a toll on my body,” he said. ​“But I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

For years, Bob­by man­aged his back pain with injec­tions, chi­ro­prac­tor vis­its, acupunc­ture, and mas­sage. ​“I felt bet­ter, but at the end of the day, it was always just mask­ing the prob­lem. It was nev­er fix­ing the prob­lem.”

His pain was relent­less. ​“If I had to put a num­ber on it, I was prob­a­bly at an eight out of 10 on a pain scale,” he said. ​“The more man­u­al labor I did, the eas­i­er it was to get through the day. But the moment I got in my truck, sat on the couch, or lay down in bed, I would instant­ly seize up and could bare­ly get back up.”

Even sim­ple tasks became painful. ​“I couldn’t bend over to get my three-year-old out of his crib with­out winc­ing. Putting on socks or load­ing the dish­wash­er was painful,” he shared. ​“I hadn’t slept through the night in ten years with­out wak­ing up because of pain.”

Still, Bob­by most­ly kept the pain to him­self. ​“I just lived with it. I fought through it and real­ly did­n’t let any­body know. My wife could see it because I’d walk fun­ny until my back straight­ened out,” he said.

Fac­ing the Fear of Surgery

Like many, Bob­by was afraid of surgery. ​“I thought I’d be out of work for months. I kept putting my busi­ness and my fam­i­ly ahead of myself.”

But one night before Christ­mas, he reached a break­ing point. He knew he had to do something.

He turned to Ashish Patel, MD, a spine sur­geon with The Spine Cen­ter at Duly Health and Care. Dr. Patel diag­nosed Bob­by with disco­genic back pain, caused by a dam­aged or degen­er­at­ed disc in the spine.

“I met Dr. Patel and I loved him imme­di­ate­ly. His atti­tude, his per­son­al­i­ty, his demeanor — he was just great,” Bob­by said.

Dr. Patel rec­om­mend­ed disc replace­ment surgery, a pro­ce­dure not wide­ly avail­able local­ly but ide­al for Bobby’s sit­u­a­tion. He explained that Bobby’s phys­i­cal con­di­tion and spe­cif­ic disc issue made him an excel­lent can­di­date, with a high like­li­hood of success.

Bob­by final­ly found the hope he’d been search­ing for in Dr. Patel’s words: ​“With­in three months, you’ll feel like a new person.”

The Surgery and Recovery

Bobby’s surgery went smooth­ly, and his recov­ery was faster than he expect­ed. Dr. Patel used a min­i­mal­ly dis­rup­tive, mus­cle-spar­ing tech­nique with small­er inci­sions, which helped reduce post-sur­gi­cal pain and speed up mobility.

“The surgery itself is rel­a­tive­ly short — about an hour and a half — and per­formed out­pa­tient when­ev­er pos­si­ble,” Dr. Patel explained. ​“For some­one like Bob­by, the out­come we expect­ed was excellent.”

Bobby’s recov­ery moved quick­ly. With­in three days, he was work­ing from home. By ten days, he was back in the office. Six weeks lat­er, he was almost back to nor­mal, and by the three-month mark, he was cleared for activ­i­ties like lift­ing and mow­ing the lawn.

Won­der­ing if spine surgery could help you recov­er this quick­ly? Our spine spe­cial­ists can eval­u­ate your con­di­tion and dis­cuss your treat­ment options. Sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion with Duly Health and Care’s spine team today.

A New Chap­ter — Pain Free and Active

Now, Bob­by can do the things he enjoys — dri­ving long dis­tances, play­ing with his kids, attend­ing events — with­out wor­ry­ing about pain.

“I have zero pain, and I’m not exag­ger­at­ing. What­ev­er pain I had is gone. Com­plete­ly gone,” he said.

His day-to-day life has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly. ​“It’s made every­thing bet­ter — work, fam­i­ly time, even sim­ple chores.”

Shar­ing Hope

Bob­by encour­ages oth­ers with back pain not to wait as long as he did. ​“Peo­ple are scared of surgery, but it’s not what it used to be. Med­ical advances have made a big dif­fer­ence, and the results are great.”

He cred­its Dr. Patel and his team for their hon­esty, sup­port, and quick respons­es dur­ing recovery.

“If you’re liv­ing with back pain, get ahead of it. Don’t wait like I did,” Bob­by said.

Don’t wait anoth­er day to address your pain. Sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion with our expert spine team at Duly Health and Care to start your jour­ney to recovery.