Denver neurosurgeon gives hope to patients suffering spinal cord injuries
Spinal cord patients travel to Denver from all across the world to receive treatment from renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Scott Falci. His work is paving the way for advancements in medical treatment and simultaneously helping people live their lives again.
Typically, by the time a patient goes to Dr. Falci, they have exhausted all their options. That was the case for Amber Keeler, who recently received a life-changing operation. She now wants to bring awareness to her experience.
Keeler believes she shouldn't be alive today after a bullet nearly struck her heart, and the complications she's experienced since. However, she's now preparing for her journey back home to Tallahassee, Florida with a new lease on life.
"I just see everything in front of me now; whereas, before I didn't," Keeler said.
For her, it's the end of a year's long battle with inexplicable, excruciating pain stemming from a gunshot wound suffered in 2014. She was working as a property manager -- the man who pulled the trigger, a tenant.
"He waited for me to get to work, and as soon as I got there, he pulled up behind my car and pulled out a gun and shot me," Keeler explained.
Failed surgeries and ineffective medications left her bedridden and hopeless, even looking into options for assisted suicide overseas.
"It was excruciating to the point where I felt like I was being skinned alive," Keeler said. "You're always making deals with God, and then, a lot of times, you feel forgotten."
Everything changed when she came across a testimonial video with Dr. Scott Falci, an HCA HealthOne neurosurgeon.
"When he termed my pain suicidal pain, I knew he knew what I was talking about," Keeler said.
Falci and his team performed a 17-hour surgery to give Amber her life back. They're the only team in the world able to conduct this procedure, which identifies and destroys hyperactive nerve cells causing the pain. It was a resounding success.
"It's an amazing feeling when it works because we know we've changed someone's life, their family, children and everything," Falci said. "She's kind of a hero to all of us that she hangs in there that long."
"They saved my life and that of my family's because we were all circling the drain together," Keeler said.
Falci said the 17-hour surgeries take him about 48 hours to recover from. Between the toll it takes on him and his age, he would have stopped doing the surgeries years ago. The reason he doesn't is because without him and his team, patients like Amber would have nowhere to turn.
It was the miracle she was hoping for.
"I wasn't forgotten after all," Keeler said.
