Share review of Mr Sean Molloy

Mr Sean Molloy 2024-01-14 Person 5 5 0

The facts were stacked up against me: * I had early but unmistakable signs of cauda equina syndrome, my case was urgent, without intervention I faced life in a wheelchair with no control of bladder and bowels. Only a year earlier I had been super fit, sailing, skiing, woodworking etc. * Depending on whether you count from the microdiscectomy of 2000 or the lumbar fusion of 2014, I needed a quaternary or tertiary revision to what was (by then) an L2-S1 fusion, to extend the fusion to include L1-2. * Quite apart from the risks of back surgery in any case, and the fact that outcomes statistically worsen with every revision, L1-2 poses special problems of access etc, * At age 60, I am 10y in to Parkinsons Disease, and, although I have kept active on the advice of neurologists as one of the best forms of long-term management, there are no two ways about it, lumbar fusion is not recommended for Parkinson's. * After 25h in UCLH A+E, a very ugly looking scan, and a multi-disciplinary case conference, I had been sent home. Although the reasons were not well conveyed to me, I believe they felt the risks of operating were too high. * The surgeon who did the previous revision declined further involvement. He is a hugely well-respected lumbar spinal surgeon with numerous uniformly excellent reviews on this site. Since it seemed that no UK surgeon would take me on, we contacted surgeons abroad, with a particular focus on experts on endoscopic disc surgery, a technique that has a wide and successful following in Germany (and I believe Korea). I was prepared to pay for the procedure and for med-evac, but again we were declined, with some citing the risks of med-evac as too great and others citing the involvement of the ligamentum flavum with the disc herniation as an issue. It was at this stage, 3d after diagnosis, that I engaged Mr Molloy, as, as far as I could tell, the only surgeon of repute willing to take me on. He cancelled vacation plans and operated on me as an urgent case a further 3d later. By then I had the first symptoms of full-on cauda equina syndrome, but surgery was early enough for me to fully recover. After a two stage procedure I was walking pretty normally---and pain-free---within a day of returning to the ward. My total stay in hospital was 2w and by the time I left I was fully functioning, walking and negotiating stairs unaided apart from the moulded thermoplastic brace he required me to wear. It was the opinion of numerous doctors who saw me whilst in hospital that all the surgeons who had turned me down had done me a favour by pushing me towards the only surgeon competent for this level of difficulty. I am writing following my 6m follow-up with Mr Molloy: it transpires that the fusion is already complete and no further follow-up is necessary, and I that I can therefore remove the brace. I am now pain-free, and able to walk 5km+. THis for me is an unprecedented speed of recovery, and to have such a fast recovery after such an unpromising start seems to me totally extraordinary. Apart from his consummate skill as a surgeon, Mr Molloy is also a lovely kind man, a patient history taker, and well able to adapt his explanations to the technical level of the patient.