I had emergency spinal surgery after three discs collapsed onto my spinal cord causing a cauda equinas compression when I was 21. Going for that surgery was absolutely terrifying as it’s a fairly risky place to operate on. I’m hoping if I need another in the future (thanks degenerative disc disease) that these sort of technological advances will make it safer and easier to recover from. If I pass the disease onto my own kids I have hope that they will not have to go through as much trauma as I did.

It is wild to see how fast medicine has been advancing in the last 10 years. My Granda had open heart surgery in 2011 and if he had the same surgery today it would be keyhole. All of these advancements matter.