Generations Apart: The Revolution of Modern Spine Surgery

Modern spine surgery bears almost no resemblance to the spine surgery your parents or grandparents had. Innovation and technological advances have drastically transformed the field. So what does that mean for patients? How different are things today?

Wendell and Katie Sissler are uniquely positioned to help tell this story. The father/daughter duo had spine surgeries 20 years apart and say they had very different experiences every step of the process — from the actual procedure to post-op and healing.

Here are 3 differences the Sissler Family has seen first hand. Wendell Sissler had a spinal fusion 20 years ago and his daughter Katie recently had one with me in 2022.

Surgical Differences

When it comes to surgery — the approach, the procedure itself and the incision have all changed quite significantly over the last 20 years.

Wendell’s surgery was an invasive one with doctors cutting through muscle and tissue. His incision is about ten inches long. When I did Katie’s surgery (over two different days), both were what we call minimally invasive. The first procedure we entered through her side to remove the bad disc and the next day we went in through the back on the right side of her spine. Each of her incisions are about 2 inches.

“With my Dad they had to make the incision so big because they quite literally had to move things around to get where they needed to go. My incisions are so much smaller than my Dad’s which is great,” Katie says.

“It’s so much less invasive now,” Wendell agrees.

Hospital experience

Both Katie and her Dad spent a few days in the hospital after their surgeries, but Katie says the biggest difference she sees is that she was up and moving quickly after her procedure.

“I remember them asking me to walk as soon as I woke up from anesthesia,” Katie recalls.“Around the clock, the nurses and the team were getting me up and moving every few hours.”

“I don’t think I walked until the next day,” Wendell recalls. “I remember staying in bed a lot.”

Recovery

“My recovery felt like it went on and on and on,” Wendell says. “I had a walker and I was pretty much limited to one floor of our house because the bedroom was upstairs and getting up and down steps was hard. A few weeks after my surgery we went to Disney World and I didn’t want to — but I needed to use a wheelchair then to get around.”

Katie agrees. “With my Dad, I remember him being literally in bed and confined to the first floor, whereas I was going up and down the stairs pretty quickly. It wasn’t easy. I did it slow. But I was told that in order to heal correctly, my body needed to be moving so my recovery was really different from my Dad’s. I rested for sure, but I was very focused on being as mobile as I could.”

Within a year, both Katie and Wendell say they were fully recovered and both are doing great today. Twenty years after his procedure, Wendell now walks 5–6 miles a day with his dog and Katie’s back on her Peloton, doing Barre classes, pilates and more.

“Luckily spine surgery has come such a long way and is so much less invasive,” Katie says. “It’s hard but I’m so glad that I went through it and I advise other people to go through it too if they need it.”