For 11 long years, Mary Maddox suffered indignities and frustrations few can truly understand – or would ever want to.
“I was just at work one day, and I couldn’t clock out, literally. I could not move to do it. My legs just would not do what I asked them to do,” said Maddox, who was in her 40s at the time.
The frightening experience touched off a frenzied series of physician exams – none of which provided Maddox with a clear answer as to why her body betrayed her. And so she endured, doing her best to find some sense of normalcy and mobility, despite her legs’ deterioration. Years spent searching for answers left her with just one certainty, however: Maddox could move about only with the aid of a motorized wheelchair.
That all changed when the now 56-year-old Winder, Ga., resident met Longstreet Clinic surgeon Charles B. Moomey, M.D.
“I had been to a back doctor, a hip doctor, all kinds of doctors. And they all thought I was crazy. I had lots of people say it’s all in your head. All they could tell me was that my body forgot what to do. Over the years I just about given up, and my whole life had gone up in smoke,” said Maddox, who knew that circulatory and heart problems ran in her family and grew to believe that could well be the cause of her problems, even though it had not yet been pinpointed. “It’s been a journey.”
To find out how Mary said goodbye to her wheelchair and got a major part of her life back, read and watch her testimonial here.
