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Patients Tell Their Stories - Julie Sanderson |
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Patients Tell Their Stories - Julie Sanderson
The job of seamstress doesn’t seem as if it would be a hazardous one, but it’s sure taken a toll on Julie Sanderson of Whately.
Lifting bolts of fabric for 52 years wore out the rotator cuff in Julie’s right shoulder, and kneeling in front of brides to measure and pin their gowns irrevocably damaged her left knee.
"I consider myself almost bionic," Julie says with tongue in cheek after having her left knee replaced in November 2006 and five years after rotator cuff surgery.
But bionic or not, Julie needed help after both procedures to get back to her seamstress business, and she found that help in the form of physical therapist Nancy August and Nina Sibley, a physical therapist assistant, both with Cooley Dickinson’s Rehabilitation Services in South Deerfield.
"There’s something about Nancy that puts you at ease," says Julie. "She’s very encouraging all the time."
Julie first had physical therapy treatments with Nancy after her rotator cuff surgery. She says Nancy would place her hands on Julie in a way that was soothing and calming. "I swear she has magic in those hands," Julie says.
Then, oddly enough for Julie, she visited with Nancy and Nina again for therapy treatments – before her knee replacement. "I couldn’t figure out why I was having therapy beforehand," she says, adding that she now knows that her surgeon wanted to make sure her body was in the best possible shape before surgery.
"That put me ahead of the game after surgery when I started physical therapy," she says. "Before the surgery I couldn’t lift the knee at all, so the point was to strengthen it as much as possible."
After the surgery, Julie went back to South Deerfield for physical therapy with Nancy and Nina. The goal was to build up her muscles and establish a range of motion as close to normal as possible. She did many exercises, sometimes with weights on her knee, and eventually she was able to ride an exercise bicycle.
Julie is married to Neal Sanderson, and the two have six children and 16 grandchildren, so Julie is especially glad to be active now; she can keep up with her 21-month-old twin grandchildren – a boy and a girl.
Julie also still runs her seamstress business, which used to be operated in Williamsburg under the name Julie Nehring and is now run out of Whately.
"My left knee is great," she says. "I’m walking a lot better."
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