Medtronic plc

So in 2015, I started having pain in my low back and the pain would go down my legs. And then it turned into numbness and tingling in my lower legs and feet. And we came to realize that part of the issue was diabetic peripheral neuropathy. My name is Farrah Stewart-Tarver, and I live in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston, with my husband, kids, and I am a nurse by trade, a pediatric nurse. So the pain got to be where I would say it was a 10 of 10. I stopped working at several points. I was home in bed most of the time, sitting on a heating pad, pretty much feeling depressed because I felt like I worked so hard for my career. there were things with my children that I was not able to do I went to see numerous providers I've done physical therapy taking medication I've had steroid injections nerve blocks you know they really felt like they couldn't figure out what to do to help So they said, well, maybe you should see Dr. Patel. She's an interventional neurologist. You know, maybe if you see her, there's something that she can do to help you.

So what I told her is that, you know, Farrah, since you have optimized your oral medications, you've done your physical therapy, you've tried the creams, and you're still in a good amount of chronic pain here, and you're having this painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy, why don't we take the next step for spinal cord stimulation? So we took her to the surgery center. We did a spinal cord stimulator trial. She had a successful trial. which is great because it's like test driving a surgery without committing to the surgery. After the trial, Farah did elect to undergo that surgery with me. So within a week or two, she was back to doing her normal walking, up and down stairs, groceries, all of those things.

I can go on walks. I mean, that in itself is a big deal because I hadn't been able to get up and go to the park and go for a walk. So I can do that with my daughter now and just do different things with my kids that I had been unable to do for years. We love to travel. We try to travel frequently. I had to stop doing that for a while unless it was absolutely necessary. And now I've been able to go to, I've gone to Vegas twice since I've had the simulator. We went to Hawaii, which was an eight hour flight. So my outlook improved dramatically on the future because now in my head, I'm thinking to myself, well, maybe I won't have to be in a wheelchair in 10 years when I'm in my early 50s.