Smith Surgery and Rehabilitation Successful

John Smith of West Point is walking into the New Year much better than he hobbled out of 2020, thanks to the rehabilitation staff of North Mississippi Medical Center-West Point. “I didn’t know what I was going to do to be able to walk on this leg again,” says John, a chemical engineer and chemist who had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in October 2020. A fitness buff, John was walking eight to 10 miles a day until his left knee started giving him problems. “I just thought I had a sore knee,” he says, “but I finally decided I needed to see someone about it.” The surgery went well but John didn’t rebound as quickly as he expected. At his follow-up visit, his doctor referred him for physical therapy at the West Point hospital. Three days a week, John works with physical therapists Corey Watson and Jessica Huckaby on range of motion and normalizing his gait pattern. “They’re trying to make the muscles around my knee stronger,” John says. “I’ll soon be walking without a cane and taking stairs again. They are all so optimistic there. I know every time I go for therapy that I’m going to feel better when I’m done.”

NMMC-West Point offers outpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy by referral from a health care provider. For more information, call (662) 377-2345 or 1-800-THE DESK (1-800-843-3375) or visit www.nmhs.net/rehabilitation.