Keeley Shepherd

“I have suffered from horrendous back and leg pain for over 8 years until I finally had surgery. Prior to surgery, in the early days, the pain would come in bouts; I would suffer for a number of months with severe pain in my lower back and then excruciating pains in my right foot and lower right leg. This pain very much affected me, my life and my family. I was constantly on a very high level of pain relief which in turn, hindered me as a person because of the awful side effects.

Prior to surgery I lost all feeling in my right foot and lower leg and the pain in which I was suffering would have me lying on the floor crying. I fell a number of times and was unable to work full time. I had always been a person who exercised regularly, even sometime during the lesser pain just to try to help my back and keep mobility but this diminished during the later years.

After surgery I knew immediately that it had worked, I was able to put pressure through my right foot whilst lying in the hospital bed. The pain was minimal afterwards; only post-surgery pain but nothing like what I had previously been living through.

As an example of how fantastic I feel now a year after surgery, last week I ran 24 miles. I have a full life, my children have a fit and healthy mother back and my husband has a wife who is not suffering in constant pain. People come up to me just to say how well I look and how amazing it is seeing how far I have come.

I do have a scar on my stomach but this is a reminder every day as to where I was then and where I am now, with no pain, I feel I have been given my life back.”