Middle school teacher Carolyn Hughes says that Dr. Hayes changed her life. And that is not an exaggeration. “Poor bone structure runs in my family,” she shares. “My arches are way too high, which causes the tendons to pull on my toes, making them malformed.”
If this doesn’t sound painful enough, consider that as a teacher, Carolyn is on her feet all day long. She estimates she walks eight to 10 miles a day, just at school. “I’ve been in pain for the last six years, but the last few months were unbearable,” she says. “By the end of the day the balls of my feet and arches hurt so badly I had to come home and just sit for the rest of the night.”
She finally scheduled surgery with Dr. Hayes – one in November and one in December. He reconstructed the joints in her toes, while also lengthening the tendons. While she is still in a boot for her (left) foot, the pins were removed last week.
“I didn’t realize how having bad feet threw off the rest of my body,” she says. “After the surgery, some calluses I had just fell right off because my feet were in the proper shape. And my entire body feels better. I also no longer have lower back pain.”
“God forbid I ever have to do anything like this again,” she says. “But if I do, Great Basin Orthopaedics is the only place I would go. I love Dr. Hayes and I’ve heard such wonderful things about all of the other surgeons there as well.”