Young St. Luke's patient is ‘poster child’ for confronting scoliosis surgery and recovery

For the past 15 years or so, Dr. Jason Robison has worked as an orthopedic surgeon at St. Luke’s with a special interest in pediatric orthopedic care.

Scoliosis is an important part of his practice, and the vast majority of the scoliosis patients he sees and treats are adolescents. Some cases can be treated with bracing, but others require surgery. According to the CLEAR Scoliosis Institute, about 29,000 scoliosis surgeries are performed annually on adolescents.

Over time, Dr. Robison has seen that a patient’s attitude can have an impact on post-surgical success.

“To some degree, you can predict how people are going to do after surgery based on how they do beforehand,” Dr. Robison said. “What kind of goals do they have coming in? Those things translate to improvements.”

With that in mind, Dr. Robison felt pretty good about the post-surgical outcome for a recent patient: 13-year-old Charlee Stewart.

“She’s kind of the poster child for having a good attitude and crushing the recovery,” Dr. Robison said.

Charlee knew more about scoliosis than the average adolescent because her older brother, Chase, had been diagnosed and treated by Dr. Robison.

“I first saw him at 15 or 16,” Dr. Robison said. “He was athletic, and kind of a role model when it comes to how fast you get up and walk (after surgery). … He’s 19 now, and he’s actually a firefighter.”

Though the preferred treatment is a nonsurgical option, it was clear to Dr. Robison that it would be necessary to treat surgically. When it came time for Charlee to have surgery she asked her brother how many laps he’d been able to walk around the nurses’ station.

“She made a point of beating him in regard to the effort during the post-operative period,” Dr. Robison said. “So, that shows the kind of spunky, competitive person that she is.”

Charlee’s mother, Traci Beckley, is all too familiar with Charlee’s competitiveness.

“I think she ended up doing 10 more laps, just to put an exclamation point on it,” Beckley said.

After Chase was diagnosed with scoliosis, Beckley learned that the condition tends to run in families. Years before, Beckley discovered she had scoliosis while giving birth to Chase.

“So, we were more proactive with Charlee,” Beckley said. “But, unfortunately, hers was so aggressive because she was so active.”

Charlee is an avid softball player who is the star pitcher on her team and has been named the Eastern Elmore Softball League MVP (she and her family live in Hammett, a small town near Glenns Ferry).

It was important to Charlee that she’d be able to continue playing softball after her surgery. The procedure, along with advancements in technology, still meant a thorough recovery, but also allows more mobility than a similar one even a decade ago. She intends to keep playing and hopes to be a part of the Glenns Ferry High School program as a freshman this fall.

“That’s why we wanted to have Charlee tell her story,” Beckley said. “You can be diagnosed with scoliosis and you’re going to be fine.”

Charlee said she actually experience less pain when playing softball now.

“It changed my life in a good way,” she said. “That’s what I like to tell people. I used to get kinks in my neck all the time and now I don’t get those kinks. I don’t really have much back pain or neck pain anymore. … Before, when I was pitching my back would start hurting. Now, it feels way better.”

Dr. Robison is one of the few surgeons in Idaho who specializes in spine and hip deformities in children. He said seeing outcomes like Charlee’s is immensely satisfying.

“It’s why I do what I do,” he said. “It changes lives.”

In turn, Beckley said she’s thankful for the changes Dr. Robison has made in her children’s lives.

“As parents, we were really proactive,” Beckley said. “We looked at other options, but at the end of the day Dr. Robison was the one who we felt most confident about. He definitely made Charlee feel at ease.”

And Beckley allowed her daughter to have a say in the decision as well.

“I told my mom I didn’t want anyone else to do the surgery,” Charlee said. “I really like Dr. Robison. … When I go to see him, you can tell that he cares, and I just feel so comfortable around him.”

Having been through the diagnosis, treatment and surgery for scoliosis Charlee has some encouraging words for other young people who may experience a similar journey.

“I would tell them to do what they can,” Charlee said. “You might get to the point where your have to get surgery, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like you have to quit doing what you like doing in life.”

The importance of screening

Charlee was fortunate to have a mother who was aware of scoliosis and sought treatment for her daughter.

But not all kids in Idaho find themselves in that situation.

“There are, of course, plenty of young people in Idaho who don’t have a primary care physician, either because of socioeconomic issues (or other factors),” Dr. Robison said.

That’s why Dr. Robison is such a huge proponent of school screenings. Girls are typically screened when they are in fifth and seventh grade, and boys in sixth and eighth grade.

Dr. Robison commends the Boise School District for performing regular screenings, and even volunteers his expertise at those screenings.

The screenings might find uneven shoulders or a prominent shoulder blade, which might indicate a scoliosis exam is recommended.

But Dr. Robison said sometimes the symptoms go unnoticed – or are hidden.

He related the story of a girl who wore a long trench coat for months to cover the large curve that scoliosis was creating in her back.

“That’s why school screenings can be so important,” Dr. Robison said. “You might find something a student is hiding from other people.”

He encourages parents and other caretakers to educate themselves about scoliosis.

“Especially parents who have had a family history or know of a family history,” he said.