Published: August 22, 2025
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
For some, age really is just a number. Rona Garriott is proof of that.
The 64-year-old Pleasureville, Kentucky, woman works full time at a chiropractor’s office. After work, she’s in her garden and kitchen, feeding both her passion and her palate. Somehow, she still finds time for exercise, doing her best to stay in shape as she ages.
Looking at her, you’d never know that a year ago, she had back pain — caused by severe adult degenerative scoliosis — that took over.
“The beginning of 2024, the pain became so excruciating,” Rona said. “The chiropractors I work with could not fix me. They were just helping me manage the pain. I’d go home at night in tears and just lie down — no dinner, no gardening, no nothing.”
The pain had become intolerable after 12 years of trying nonsurgical options. She tried radiofrequency ablations, which targeted and disabled — for a time — the nerves that transmit pain signals from the spine. She tried epidural injections too. Ultimately, she ran out of options.
“About 12 years ago, it just showed up,” she said. “I was injured at my job way back when I was 40 years old, and I did not have this curvature [scoliosis],” Rona said. “I’ve had MRIs on my back and nothing ever came up. And then one day, it was just there. I couldn’t live this way.”
She began searching the internet for scoliosis expertise. She’d find her fix in Louisville.
Rona eventually connected with Charles H. Crawford III, M.D., orthopedic spine surgeon with Norton Leatherman Spine. The two talked about her condition and the pros and cons of surgery.
“Although nonsurgical options can be useful for some patients, sometimes it’s not enough when they have significant pinched nerves or spinal instability,” Dr. Crawford said. “At that point, surgery is truly the only thing that brings those patients significant relief. I tell them it’s a big deal, and they need to make sure they’re ready for it. Once they make that commitment to themselves, our team is ready to do everything it can to get them back to their lives.”
Dr. Crawford sent Rona home with a little homework, suggesting she do some research on the procedure, leaving the decision of whether to have surgery to her. So Rona found an article on the Norton Healthcare website. It detailed the story of Jennifer White, a woman who returned to her active, hiking lifestyle just three months after extensive scoliosis surgery with Dr. Crawford.
Jennifer’s story inspired Rona to schedule surgery.
“Well, I was hurting so bad I knew in my head I was going to do it,” Rona said. “But I think just from that website and that one article, where he fixed that woman and she was hiking in a few months, that did it.”
“These surgeries are so big and significant that many people are hesitant to have them,” Dr. Crawford said. “But when you can see somebody who got through it and is really happy they did it, it helps calm those natural anxieties. With this type of surgery, one of the first things patients tell me is that they wish they would’ve done the surgery earlier. They say they put up with pain for way too long. Sharing these real success stories often has a powerful impact on other patients.”
In December 2024, in the week of Rona’s 64th birthday, Dr. Crawford performed successful spinal fusion surgery, inserting two rods and 22 screws to correct Rona’s scoliosis for good. She spent three nights in the hospital, but on the fourth day she went home and climbed the stairs to her bedroom without her husband’s help. Her life was changed.
“That’s how good my surgery was,” Rona said. “I didn’t realize he was actually going to straighten me out. I thought the rods and screws were just going to prevent me from curving any more. And I love it. I saw my first [postsurgical] X-ray two months later, and said, ‘Oh, my God.’”
Rona progressed quickly.
Two weeks after surgery, she began walking long distances. In four weeks, she restarted her workout program, albeit using light weights. Eight weeks after surgery, Rona was back at work full time. The fresh-cooked meals were back on the menu, and her garden never looked so good. She was feeling like she had turned the clock back decades. Now, eight months later, she feels like she’s reached a turning point.
It’s normalcy she’s waited years for and is happy to finally have again.
“It’s really good to be back,” Rona said. “And they told me after six months that the healing is done, but I still feel — now all these months out — and I’m really going over another threshold of being even better. In the gym, my legs and core are getting stronger. I’m just really happy.”
“[Scoliosis surgery] is something we’ve worked on for the past couple decades,” Dr. Crawford said. “It’s a high-risk, big surgery, and making sure we do it well is so important — that means everything from preoperative planning to real-time conversations with patients, to performing well and to the postoperative stuff as well. I’m so happy Rona has had a great outcome.”