Colorado Orthopedic Consultants

Having a workman's comp injury, Dr Stuhl was kind, attentive, professional and thorough! He's still following my case, and I'm so happy he's on my health team!

Keisha Heidelberg opted not to leave a text review of Colorado Orthopedic Consultants

A year ago, as I lay waiting for an ambulance on the freezing-rain soaked blacktop of Belleview Boulevard after being struck on my lower right leg by a car, I was wondering a lot more about whether I'd ever be able to walk again than which specific orthopedic surgeon would perform whatever operation was necessary.

Once I was immobilized and placed in an ambulance, the driver actually gave me a choice of hospitals to go to. One was St. Anthony's -- I'm sure it's a fine hospital but the name reminded me of priests and last rites -- so I chose Swedish, since that conjured up fanciful images of blonde nurses fawning over me.

As luck would have it, Swedish is where Colorado Orthopedic surgeons are on call.
As more luck would have it, Dr. Craig Davis was on call at that particular moment. What's unusual about that, I learned later, is that Dr. Davis is typically his practices' upper extremity man.

When your tibia and fibula are sticking out of your leg at a right angle, they fast-track you to surgery due to the risk of infection. In the midst of the frenzy, Dr. Davis appeared, as calm as he could be, to tell me he was going to fix my leg and about the risks of the operation. He seemed absolutely confident, which really put me at ease.

When I came to after the operation, the doctors and nurses were all over me about how much pain I was feeling. The only thing was I didn't feel any pain. They assured me, don't worry, you will! Now, while it was certainly incredibly disorienting to find myself incapacitated in a hospital after making a cat food run, and it was hardly a comfortable situation, as the hours went by, all I really felt like taking was a couple of Percocets the first day.

Still, they persisted, asking me "what is your pain level on the 1-10 scale?" every ten minutes. Let me preface the following statement by assuring anyone reading this I am no Sgt. Rock. I'm not macho, I'm a complete wimp when it comes to medical stuff. But the fact of the matter is that now, a year later, I still don't have any pain from the surgery or the titanium rod Dr. Davis somehow expertly inserted in my leg in about an hour. If you told me I dreamed the fact there's a titanium rod in my leg, I'd believe it.

The funny thing is another doctor from Colorado Orthopedic was making the rounds at Swedish and visited me. He seemed surprised that Dr. Davis had operated on my leg, since he was the upper extremity man. He was also surprised I wasn't in a world of pain. All I can say is that I thank my lucky stars that Dr. Davis operated on my leg, cause he absolutely nailed the operation, so to speak! How he could stop the trauma, prevent any infection, measure the rod, and screw it to my ankle and knee in an hour is beyond me.

A few days later, it turned out what I thought was whiplash was actually a severely separated shoulder and my thumb was messed up as well. Once I was released from the hospital and began seeing Dr. Davis for follow-up visits, he assured me that as messed up as my shoulder was at the time, it would heal itself over time. That was hard to believe at the time, but he turned out to be right.

Also, one of the EMTs at Swedish who visited me at the hospital told me it looked like there would be arthritis in my thumb. Dr. Davis also looked at the x-rays and concluded he didn't think that was true. Well, I play guitar all day long now, so he was right.

Dr. Davis is a fantastic surgeon and couldn't have been more pleasant and positive over the follow-up visits. I walk without a limp, am running better and better, and there is nothing I can't do now that I could prior to the emergency surgery.

Re: A year ago, as I lay wai ... Colorado Orthopedic Consultants replied on Thursday, February 20th 2014

Lory, We are thrilled to hear that you had such a wonderful experience with Colorado Orthopedic Consultants, and Dr. Davis in particular. It is great to hear that your recovery continues to go well, and we thank you for sharing your experience with everyone else. We at COC work hard to ensure that everyone has a five star experience worth sharing, and we wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors. -The COC Team