Herschel Talley’s wrangled cattle out west, served two tours of duty in Vietnam, and worked as a corrections officer. At age 65, the Curryville resident still cares for a stable of horses. He’s no superman, he says, but he’s pretty tough.
In 2004, Talley’s horse Cherokee bolted when his cellphone went off (playing the William Tell Overture), which caused Talley to suffer a spinal fracture. He was diagnosed with a vertical compression fracture of the spine and put in a back brace for six months.
Then, while mowing the lawn last summer, Talley heard that same sickening pop: another fractured vertebra. This time, though, his recovery was far quicker, thanks to a kyphoplasty, also known as a vertebral augmentation or a minimally invasive vertebral-body balloon procedure.
Dr. James Sturm of Arch Advanced Pain Management performed the procedure. (SSM Health Care, St. Anthony’s Medical Center, and other local specialists offer the procedure as well.) He made a stab incision, which typically heals in less than a week, then put a needle through a bony access point in the spine. A balloon was then inflated to restore the vertebra to its pre-collapse height, and that space was filled with polymethyl methacrylate cement. “That’s Plexiglas,” Sturm says, “just like we use for windows.” It hardened in a little less than an hour.
Talley immediately felt better, though he had to sit still and heal afterward. “It was hard for me,” he says, “because I’m the kind of person who can’t sit down and do nothing.”
