HOUSTON—Sammie Davis was one of those talented kids, someone who could belt out a Broadway song and perform. But that all changed in Davis’ senior year of high school. One day at a friend’s house, she had sudden excruciating pain in her foot.
"I sat there for 20 minutes just screaming and crying," said the northwest Harris County teen. "I almost blacked out."
Within a year, she had to be wheeled around, the pain became so debilitating. Doctors couldn’t figure it out.
"I went to prom in tennis shoes and graduated in a wheel chair," said Davis, adding she tried ice, medication, exercises—even surgery—to try and ease her suffering. "Nothing had helped."
"It was very hard to see someone so positive get so discouraged," said her mother, Pat Davis.
Davis went on to UT San Antonio, but things got so bad she had to stop working and going to school.
She was bedridden until she met Dr. Ioannis Skaribas, a surgeon at Memorial Hermann Surgical Center in Sugar Land.
"She was unable to walk," said Dr. Skaribas. "She was going around in a motorized scooter."
So Skaribus implanted a trial spinal cord stimulation device in Davis’ back. Turns out, her nerves were misfiring, sending pain signals all the time.
The device acts like a blocker that doesn’t use pain medication.
"It sends electrical impulses to the spinal cord," said Dr. Skaribas. "It blocks these painful signals."
And the result is she’s walking. It floored everyone.
"She said, ’I don’t have any pain in my foot for the first time," Davis’ mother said. "That really got to me. For the first time, she was comfortable."
Not only was the pain gone, but the recovery was rapid.
"The fact that she wasn’t walking for three years and then she was walking around a couple of days after a trial is absolutely remarkable," said Dr. Skaribas.
On Monday, Davis will undergo a second surgery to implant a permanent device inside her back.
She can’t wait. She has only been able to walk around in orthopedic type shoes.
"I have my eyes set on a pair of Betsy Johnson pumps," said Davis.
And, she’s ready to step back into her life.
