Vim & Vigor - Summer 2009 - (Page 4)

Charles remo jr. (left) talks with michael gehrke, m.D., about his pain. finally relief from cañon city man discovers new life with hospital program by michele conklin pain en years ago, Charles Remo Jr. cut his own firewood, gardened and worked a full-time job. All of that was taken away in a split second when a highschool student ran a red light and hit his car. The accident left him with broken ribs, a broken sternum and a back full of shredded disks. It wasn’t the accident alone that devastated his life. It was the pain that has plagued him ever since—pain so severe that he couldn’t walk from the parking lot into the grocery store, much less hold a job. T Compounding the problem were the difficulty and humiliation Remo felt when he sought help. Few physicians specialize in the complexities of pain management, and legitimate pain sufferers like Remo often are interrogated by healthcare providers to ensure that they are not drug addicts seeking improper prescriptions. That all turned around a year ago when Remo moved from Missouri to Cañon City and read an article about a new pain management program at St. Thomas More Hospital. After 10 years of unrelenting pain, Remo said the call was the beginning of a miracle. “Within a month, I was feeling better,” the 52-year-old says. “I could hardly walk at all and now I can walk a mile a day.” 4 vim & vigor • su mme r 2 009 photograph by jennifer kemp

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Summer 2009

Vim & Vigor - Summer 2009
Healthy Steps
Nurturing Health
Contents
Finally... Relief from Pain
Helping Hearts
Take Action
Check Your Tech
Small Wonders
Positively Healthy
On the Cover
Culinary Cures
In a Heartbeat
Make it Last
Safe Harbor
5 Million Lives
Under the Cyberknife
Around the Region
Ask the Experts
Community Connections

Vim & Vigor - Summer 2009

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