Full disclosure: I'm a past patient of Dr. LeMay who has entrusted this University of Michigan alum with a trio of difficult surgeries.
In 2008, Dr. LeMay repaired my Arnold Chiari malformation (i.e., my cerebellum was herniating into my spinal canal space, causing absolutely medieval migraines). He did this by creating more space for the cerebellum to exist without floating or herniating into my spinal canal. I was ultimately satisfied by the outcome of this surgery.
In 2009, I asked Dr. LeMay to redo a three level cervical spinal fusion, C5 to C7, originally performed by Dr. Kourosh Shamlou in 2007 but the screws had become loosened when my then 2.5 ton Ford Explorer barreled over me in my driveway because the prior driver had left the transmission precariously posited between "P" and "R." I was ultimately satisfied by the original outcome of this surgery.
In 2011, I was involved in a horrific 7-car collision on the 605 FWY South when a speeding teenager poleaxed into the back of my car, ramming me into the car(s) in front of me and ultimately T-boning me into the damned freeway's concrete divider. This ruptured every level in my neck from C2 to T2, but Dr. LeMay advised that he fuse me from C3 to C7, a five level fusion. I underwent his surgical scapel in the spring of 2012 and was NOT satisfied by the outcome of the surgery.
For all of 2012, 2013 and most of 2014 I lamented to him that my pain was actually WORSE than pre-operatively. Dr. LeMay, who God Bless him is about as charming as a stapler on his best day, would just smirk and tell me, "Scott there's nothing else wrong with you. You're gonna hafta learn how to live with this."
Mind you, before the accident I was a senior manager for Fortune 500 companies Ernst & Young and Goldman Sachs and had to file for permanent disability because of the depth and breadth of my injuries.
Finally in November of 2014, I sought a second medical opinion from the neurosurgery department at my alma mater, the University of Southern California. Dr. Frank Acosta was the chair of the Keck Medicine of USC Neurosurgery Dept, took a close look at my MRIs and point blank asked me, "Mr. Willingham are you a smoker?"
"Oh God no. Have never touched it."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am. I lost both my grandfathers and my mom to lung cancer and make annual donations to the American Cancer Society..."
"Mr. Willingham, you have a severe case of pseudoarthrosis from C3 to C7 and you require a nine level fusion from C2 to T2."
I was completely flabbergasted. How could Dr. LeMay blow off all of my persistent howls of pain and discomfort, keep insisting that "all was fine" with my films and send me packing, time after time??!
In December of 2014 I spent eight days at the Keck Medicine of USC Medical Center, where Dr. Acosta spent eight-plus hours carefully pulling out all of the old hardware from past fusions then surgically fused me at all nine levels from C2 to T2, via a daunting ten inch scar that runs from the middle of the back of my skull down to the approximate middle of my spine.
The recuperation was the hardest physical struggle I've ever endured. But through my limitless Faith in God and the love and support of my wonderful wife and kids, I made it.
As for Dr. LeMay?? I'd urge you to run/speed walk/ or heck even grab both bars of your walker and speedily but carefully inch your way out of his office! Even now some six-plus years removed from my last epic surgery --which was necessitated only because of LeMay's patent refusal to level with me re: the real extent of my injuries!-- I still cringe and grimace at his name.
Newly minted graduates of medical school are asked to raise their hand and swear an oath called the Hippocratic Oath. One of its primary vows is "to first do no harm."
Dr. LeMay, by ignoring my pleas for help and further ignoring what took his Neurosurgeon colleague at USC all of five minutes to swiftly diagnose, did lasting and severe damage to me. read more
