December 13, 2023 • 21 mins
Two years after surviving a high shooting that claimed the lives of four of her fellow students, Kylie Ossege, now 19, is still recovering from the physical and emotional trauma left by the bullet that shattered her clavicle and nearly left her paralyzed. On this episode, Sandra Lindsay, RN, speaks with Kylie about the November 30, 2021 attack, her fight to regain the ability to walk and her recent surgery to stabilize her spine. Led by John Caridi, MD, a spine surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital, the operation was necessary to not only straighten, but strengthen her spine, which was destabilized by the bullet's impact.
Now a member of her college's chapter of March for our Lives, a nonprofit gun violence prevention group, Kylie is sharing her story in hopes of making a difference.
Learn more about March for our Lives.
Learn more about Northwell Health's Center for Gun Violence Prevention.
Learn more about the Department of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Me and my friends would kind of, like,
gather in this one part of the
hallway before our
fifth hour class,
and it was just so
out of nowhere,
I just fell to the ground.
Our principal came on like,
the PAand was like,
"We're in a lockdown. This is not a drill." And I was like, oh,
my gosh
(00:21):
that's what's happening. Like,
I was just shot?
Hello,
and welcome to 20 Minutes Health Talk
I'm Sandra Lindsay.
Two years ago, a horrific shooting at Oxford
High School in Michigan claimed
(00:43):
the lives of four students.
Today, one of the survivors,
Kylie Ossege,
is still recovering from the
physical and emotional trauma
left by the bullet that
shattered her clavicle and
nearly left her paralyzed.
I still don't have 100% feeling
(01:04):
in my legs. They're still, like,
pretty numb,
but I can walk now and stuff.
But it took a long time,
and it's still healing
to this day.
On today's episode,
you'll hear from Kylie, now 19,
and her mother, Marita,
as well as the surgeon who
recently performed an operation
(01:27):
at Lenox Hill Hospital to
stabilize her spine and give her
a better chance at recovery.
But her journey to this point
has been a long, winding road,
and it started on November 30, 2021.
I believe it was a Tuesday and
(01:48):
just carried on my day normally,
and ate lunch with my friends,
as I did every day.
And it was just so normal.
And then I remember hearing,
like, a balloon popping,
or so I thought it was at the time.
It was during passing time.
So there was a lot of kids in
the hallway, and then in, like,
a matter of seconds, it was, like, empty.
And then three people stayed
(02:09):
in the hallway.
Before she knew what was
happening around her,
the force of the bullet caused
Kylie to fall to the ground.
A fellow student had opened fire
in the school hallway.
That became more clear when she
saw two classmates also
on the floor,
(02:30):
severely injured and bleeding.
Kylie tried her best to help
despite still being in danger herself
So Hannah was, like,
right next to me,
and I kept reaching over,
and I was in a, like, almost,
like,
petting her head and just kind
of, like, trying to comfort her.
And I kept telling her,
(02:50):
I'm like, just keep breathing.
Help is going to come.
Don't worry. Just stay here.
Keep breathing. And it's like,
I wonder every day if
Hannah knows that I said those
things to her. And it's like,
I wonder if she did
hear those things,
if it comforted her in any way.
And I really hope it did,
(03:12):
just because it's like I was the
last person to be there with
her. Before she passed away.
And
it's obviously sad to me that I
couldn't do anything to help her
more, and I wish I could.
While she was able to think
clearly and reach out with her
arms, just moments earlier,
(03:34):
she realized she couldn't
feel or move her legs.
I remember I was, like,
hitting my legs a lot with my
hands because I couldn't
feel my legs.
And I kind of almost
tried to do, like,
a push up in a way with my arms
to almost drag my body
to a safe place.
But I was just in so much pain
because I didn't know
(03:55):
at the time,
but my clavicle was shattered,
my spine was messed up,
so I was kind of just forced to
lay there until help
came to get me.
And it felt like the longest
15 minutes of my life.
Kylie was initially paralyzed
(04:16):
by the bullet,
which entered through her
collarbone and went
out her back.
She underwent emergency surgery
at a local hospital that same day
Entering the hospital,
all I'm seeing from my vision is, like,
the ceiling with the bright
lights and a ton of just random
people in blue scrubs and
(04:36):
white coats, just, like, on the sides of me,
and they're saying my vitals.
And even though that could
be scary to some people,
I think it was a huge relief to me,
just knowing that people
were there to help me.
That was the first moment I kind
of got to relax was when
I got to the hospital,
just because I knew I was safe.
Kylie's mother, Marita,
(04:57):
found out about the shooting
from a coworker and immediately
rushed to the hospital.
And the ER doctor came and said
that Kylie had been
shot in the chest,
and they were just working
to get her stable.
They had to put a chest tube in
her because they were worried
about her lungs collapsing.
(05:21):
And he started crying,
and he held my hand,
and he said, I have children, too.
And so
tragic, tragic time for me to walk
in and to see her,
but at the same time,
a relief because she was there.
She knew me.
She was telling me things that
(05:41):
had happened. So in my mind,
I'm thinking,
I think she's going to be okay.
I was hoping that she can be okay
okay. At the hospital,
the full extent of the
damage was realized.
The bullet not only shattered her clavicle,
but also damaged portions of her
spine and some of the joints
between the cervical and the
(06:03):
thoracic spine as it exited through her back.
When it did that, it destabilized,
basically her neck.
That's Dr. John Carridi,
a spine surgeon at Lenox Hill
Hospital who would eventually
treat Kylie in 2023,
Showing us scans of Kylie's spine,
(06:24):
taken right after the injury.
He said the November 2021
surgery saved her life.
The bullet fractured her
clavicle here and then went
through the facet joints and
destroyed some of the lamina.
The lamina is a protective piece
of bone in the back part of the spine,
(06:47):
where many muscles responsible
for posture connect to the
spine. Without the lamina,
they have nowhere to connect,
leading to stability issues.
And then she had a blood clot.
Because the bullet caused
a lot of bleeding,
they removed the bone back here
and evacuated the blood clot.
(07:08):
That's why she was able to
regain her function walking.
Her recovery has been absolutely remarkable.
Removing the clot eased the
pressure on the spine.
Kylie spent the next two months
at that hospital,
longer than anyone injured
in the shooting.
An intense course of physical
(07:30):
and occupational therapy helped
her to walk again,
but she was left with chronic,
sometimes debilitating
back pain. That, Dr.
Caridi told us is because her
spine was still unstable.
There's a lot of things that go
into creating stability in our spine.
(07:50):
It's the interaction of the muscles, the joints,
the ligaments, tendons,
and all of these other things.
So if you have some kind of disruption,
you lose the ability of your
spine to keep you in
a normal posture.
So your spine then becomes
subject to gravity,
(08:12):
pulling you down. So over time,
gravity just pulled the weight
of her head down.
And as it pulled her head down,
her spine developed what we call kyphosis.
Kyphosis is an abnormal rounding
of the upper back. For Kylie,
the bullet's impact,
and to a lesser extent,
(08:32):
the surgery to remove her lamina
weakened her spine.
Her kyphosis was so severe that
she had trouble keeping
her head upright.
Her muscles basically were
working overtime to keep her
head up and keep her gaze forward,
Sometimes referred to as swan neck due to the exaggerated
(08:54):
forward curve, Dr. Caridi said Kylie's condition
would have progressed into what
he called a "chin on chest" deformity,
Which is exactly what.
It sounds like, literally.
Her chin would have been
resting on her chest,
and she wouldn't be able
to pick her head up.
What that does is it also puts a
lot of pressure on the spinal
cord because it's essentially
(09:14):
draping across the vertebrae.
And so she could have developed
worsening weakness in her legs
and trouble walking again
and things like that.
So she would have had not only
this postural problem,
but also neurologic issues as well.
Having worked so hard and so
long to regain the function she had,
(09:36):
Kylie could only push forward.
So when our surgeons in Michigan
told her she would need another
surgery to stabilize her spine.
She agreed.
I knew for this surgery that I
wanted to go to the best of the best,
just to make sure the surgery
was done correctly and that
(09:56):
it would be, hopefully,
the last surgery I needed
for this problem.
A family friend connected Kylie
with the team at Lenox Hill Hospital,
a premier destination for
neurological and spinal care.
After reviewing Kylie's case,
the chair of the department, Dr. David Langer,
referred her to Dr. Caridi,
(10:18):
who specializes in spine surgery, spinal tumors,
and spinal deformities.
From there,
we kind of just scheduled a
surgery and just kind of like,
took off from there.
I think they, Dr. Langer and
Dr. Caridi really understood the
importance of the surgery
to me and my family.
So I think they really helped to
(10:41):
make us a priority in a sense,
and to make sure that we
got this done when we wanted to,
the way we wanted to.
Before pursuing the second surgery,
Kylie wanted to focus on college
friends and attempt to get back
to a semblance of normal life.
In 2022,
(11:02):
she entered her freshman year at
Michigan State University,
where she's studying kinesiology,
taking inspiration from her
countless caretakers throughout
this journey.
Sadly,
just one semester into her
(11:23):
college experience,
tragedy struck again with
another school shooting,
this time at Michigan State.
She was not injured in the deadly attack.
Since,
she has become active using her
voice and sharing her story in
hopes of affecting change.
(11:44):
I joined a club,
which is a chapter of March for our lives,
which is a gun violence prevention organization.
So we've been doing a lot of
work there. So it's educational,
and it's also, in a way,
it's like a therapy for
a lot of people,
just because since Michigan State had a shooting this year,
(12:07):
technically, but last semester,
I think it's a good place for
people to come together and kind
of grieve together in a way.
And it's a good place for people
to support one another.
But obviously,
our main goal is just to make
change and make the world a
safer place for a lot of people.
In addition to educating people
(12:28):
about gun violence and firearm
safety, she shares her story.
For those who are no longer here
and whose voices cannot be heard.
Internally, I have to do something because
they can't do anything.
So
I need to do something for them.
(12:48):
It's definitely something that I
struggle with a little bit every day,
just knowing that little
bit of survivor's guilt,
because it's like,
why was it them and not know?
That's a big question.
I have a lot.
After finishing her
(13:08):
second semester,
Kylie and her family traveled to
New York City for her second
surgery, this time with Dr. Caridi Caridi
How's it going?
Good., How are you? Not too bad.
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling pretty good.
Neck feels okay?
Yeah, neck feels good.
The act of correcting that
kyphosis is risky to the spinal cord.
(13:30):
If you stretch the spinal cord,
you could potentially damage
it because it's a redo.
She'd had surgery in the past
that makes it a little
bit more challenging.
In a five hour operation on July 17,
a team of surgeons led by Dr.
Caridi fused Kylie's spine from
(13:50):
her C-7 vertebrae found at
the base of the neck to her
T-6 vertebrae in the upper back.
We have seven independently
moving bones in our neck,
twelve in our thoracic spine,
and then five in the
lumbar spine.
So the idea of a spinal fusion
is to turn two or more of those
bones into one solid piece of bone.
(14:13):
He explained that they cut away
sections of the bone,
which become stiff when in the
deformed posture Kylie's spine
had taken on. That, he said,
loosens them up again.
We put the screws in,
and then those screws are fixed
with rods so that they
can't move anymore.
And then what we do is we use
(14:35):
bone graft materials.
What that does is that actually
forms the bone that
heals together,
so it ends up being a solid
piece instead of these
independently moving pieces.
The result for Kylie, Dr. Caridi said,
is a much straighter spine,
which he expects will continue
to improve.
(14:56):
The portions of her spine up above this will
gradually return to their normal
spot. The other thing is,
now the muscles have something to attach to
You know, before there was no bone back here.
Now they can attach to the rods.
to hold her head up even better.
(15:17):
Over time, he added, this will also ease Kylie's chronic pain.
Yeah, I feel good, though. Yeah.
You're still doing pt? Yep.
And then you feel like you're
getting your range of motion
in your neck?
Yeah for the most part.
This isn't bad.
This isn't bad.
How about right and left?
This is good.
I can do that one easily.
(15:37):
All right, cool.
And your legs are still working
fine? Yeah, still working good.
I walked here in heels,
if that makes it better.
Wow. Impressive.
Now that I'm stable,
they have a lot of
hope like I do.
They hope that my pain will
start to diminish soon.
They hope that I can get
back to those things.
But it's like I have
(15:58):
all these hopes,
but I have to remember that I'm
still healing, in a sense.
Four months after her successful
surgery and nearly two full
years after the Oxford
high school shooting,
Kylie returned to Lenox Hill
Hospital with her family to once
again share her story in the
hopes that it can help others.
(16:20):
This part of Kylie's story, her mother said,
feels a little closer to complete.
We've always had this, like,
weight on our shoulders because
we knew the surgery was coming
and we really didn't know what
to expect from the surgery.
But after July 17, it's like a fresh start
(16:42):
and she's much better
than we had thought.
But just getting her back to her
life, little improvements, her interests,
things that she says that she
wants to do, it's uplifting.
So we're happy.
Looking ahead, Kylie hopes to get back to
her favorite pastimes,
which include tennis,
(17:04):
basketball and most of all,
horseback riding.
It's just a huge part of my
life, whether I'm riding or not,
it's therapy.
Kylie picked up on her mother's
love for horses and equestrian
life at a very young age.
So I currently own a quarter
(17:24):
horse gelding named Blaze,
who's, I think he's what,
13 years old now?
Even though I can't ride him,
it's still fun to go hang
out with him and stuff.
Asked if she thinks that she'll
be able to ride again,
Kylie didn't hesitate.
Oh yeah. it's not even a question.
I'm going to make it happen
no matter what.
(17:45):
That's the magical thing
about horses.
He provides hope. We have hope.
So she has hope. She has.
And that's what they say.
Heaven on earth.
Horses are heaven on earth.
So that's her hope.
Dr. Caridi says Kylie is doing great
after surgery and expects her
(18:06):
quality of life to continue
to improve from here.
On a personal note, he said,
it's gratifying to be able to
help someone impacted
by gun violence.
I trained at the University
of Maryland.
We saw a lot of patients
with gunshot wounds.
It's heart wrenching to see like
a young person whose
life has ended or. Ruined completely
(18:27):
Too often, he recalled, there was little they could do to help.
To be able to help her and see.
She's such a motivational person.
She's achieved so much already,
and she's only 19 years old.
The fact that she's an advocate
and she's so eloquent and kind
(18:47):
of a role model for everybody,
it means a lot to be able to
help her get to where she's
going and at least try and get
some semblance of normalcy.
I want to thank Kylie and her mother, Marita,
(19:10):
for sharing their story with us.
I couldn't agree more. With what Dr. Caridi said.
Kylie is an inspiration and
shows such courage and poise in
the face of this tragic event,
which nearly took her life.
We at Northwell Health support
Kylie not only from a medical perspective,
(19:33):
but in her quest to create
change and raise public
awareness around gun violence
prevention and safety.
I was glad to see that when
Kylie returned to Lenox Hill
Hospital to mark two years since
the Oxford High School shooting
that she was joined by the
director of Northwell's Center for Gun Violence Prevention
(19:57):
Dr. Chethan Sathya.
As he said that day,
Kylie's story and the shootings
at both Oxford High School and
Michigan State highlight
a tragic trend.
Guns are now the number one
killer of children in America.
He added that we need to
recognize the long lasting
(20:18):
effects gun violence has on its
victims, their families,
community and society as a whole
to better implement change.
To learn more about Northwell's efforts as well as
March for lives, the Gun Violence Prevention
organization Kylie is a part of
(20:40):
follow the links in the show notes
that does it for this episode. Until next time,
stay safe and be well.
Me and my friends would kind of, like,
gather in this one part of the
hallway before our
fifth hour class,
and it was just so
out of nowhere,
I just fell to the ground.
Our principal came on like,
the PAand was like,
"We're in a lockdown. This is not a drill." And I was like, oh,
my gosh
(00:21):
that's what's happening. Like,
I was just shot?
Hello,
and welcome to 20 Minutes Health Talk
I'm Sandra Lindsay.
Two years ago, a horrific shooting at Oxford
High School in Michigan claimed
(00:43):
the lives of four students.
Today, one of the survivors,
Kylie Ossege,
is still recovering from the
physical and emotional trauma
left by the bullet that
shattered her clavicle and
nearly left her paralyzed.
I still don't have 100% feeling
(01:04):
in my legs. They're still, like,
pretty numb,
but I can walk now and stuff.
But it took a long time,
and it's still healing
to this day.
On today's episode,
you'll hear from Kylie, now 19,
and her mother, Marita,
as well as the surgeon who
recently performed an operation
(01:27):
at Lenox Hill Hospital to
stabilize her spine and give her
a better chance at recovery.
But her journey to this point
has been a long, winding road,
and it started on November 30, 2021.
I believe it was a Tuesday and
(01:48):
just carried on my day normally,
and ate lunch with my friends,
as I did every day.
And it was just so normal.
And then I remember hearing,
like, a balloon popping,
or so I thought it was at the time.
It was during passing time.
So there was a lot of kids in
the hallway, and then in, like,
a matter of seconds, it was, like, empty.
And then three people stayed
(02:09):
in the hallway.
Before she knew what was
happening around her,
the force of the bullet caused
Kylie to fall to the ground.
A fellow student had opened fire
in the school hallway.
That became more clear when she
saw two classmates also
on the floor,
(02:30):
severely injured and bleeding.
Kylie tried her best to help
despite still being in danger herself
So Hannah was, like,
right next to me,
and I kept reaching over,
and I was in a, like, almost,
like,
petting her head and just kind
of, like, trying to comfort her.
And I kept telling her,
(02:50):
I'm like, just keep breathing.
Help is going to come.
Don't worry. Just stay here.
Keep breathing. And it's like,
I wonder every day if
Hannah knows that I said those
things to her. And it's like,
I wonder if she did
hear those things,
if it comforted her in any way.
And I really hope it did,
(03:12):
just because it's like I was the
last person to be there with
her. Before she passed away.
And
it's obviously sad to me that I
couldn't do anything to help her
more, and I wish I could.
While she was able to think
clearly and reach out with her
arms, just moments earlier,
(03:34):
she realized she couldn't
feel or move her legs.
I remember I was, like,
hitting my legs a lot with my
hands because I couldn't
feel my legs.
And I kind of almost
tried to do, like,
a push up in a way with my arms
to almost drag my body
to a safe place.
But I was just in so much pain
because I didn't know
(03:55):
at the time,
but my clavicle was shattered,
my spine was messed up,
so I was kind of just forced to
lay there until help
came to get me.
And it felt like the longest
15 minutes of my life.
Kylie was initially paralyzed
(04:16):
by the bullet,
which entered through her
collarbone and went
out her back.
She underwent emergency surgery
at a local hospital that same day
Entering the hospital,
all I'm seeing from my vision is, like,
the ceiling with the bright
lights and a ton of just random
people in blue scrubs and
(04:36):
white coats, just, like, on the sides of me,
and they're saying my vitals.
And even though that could
be scary to some people,
I think it was a huge relief to me,
just knowing that people
were there to help me.
That was the first moment I kind
of got to relax was when
I got to the hospital,
just because I knew I was safe.
Kylie's mother, Marita,
(04:57):
found out about the shooting
from a coworker and immediately
rushed to the hospital.
And the ER doctor came and said
that Kylie had been
shot in the chest,
and they were just working
to get her stable.
They had to put a chest tube in
her because they were worried
about her lungs collapsing.
(05:21):
And he started crying,
and he held my hand,
and he said, I have children, too.
And so
tragic, tragic time for me to walk
in and to see her,
but at the same time,
a relief because she was there.
She knew me.
She was telling me things that
(05:41):
had happened. So in my mind,
I'm thinking,
I think she's going to be okay.
I was hoping that she can be okay
okay. At the hospital,
the full extent of the
damage was realized.
The bullet not only shattered her clavicle,
but also damaged portions of her
spine and some of the joints
between the cervical and the
(06:03):
thoracic spine as it exited through her back.
When it did that, it destabilized,
basically her neck.
That's Dr. John Carridi,
a spine surgeon at Lenox Hill
Hospital who would eventually
treat Kylie in 2023,
Showing us scans of Kylie's spine,
(06:24):
taken right after the injury.
He said the November 2021
surgery saved her life.
The bullet fractured her
clavicle here and then went
through the facet joints and
destroyed some of the lamina.
The lamina is a protective piece
of bone in the back part of the spine,
(06:47):
where many muscles responsible
for posture connect to the
spine. Without the lamina,
they have nowhere to connect,
leading to stability issues.
And then she had a blood clot.
Because the bullet caused
a lot of bleeding,
they removed the bone back here
and evacuated the blood clot.
(07:08):
That's why she was able to
regain her function walking.
Her recovery has been absolutely remarkable.
Removing the clot eased the
pressure on the spine.
Kylie spent the next two months
at that hospital,
longer than anyone injured
in the shooting.
An intense course of physical
(07:30):
and occupational therapy helped
her to walk again,
but she was left with chronic,
sometimes debilitating
back pain. That, Dr.
Caridi told us is because her
spine was still unstable.
There's a lot of things that go
into creating stability in our spine.
(07:50):
It's the interaction of the muscles, the joints,
the ligaments, tendons,
and all of these other things.
So if you have some kind of disruption,
you lose the ability of your
spine to keep you in
a normal posture.
So your spine then becomes
subject to gravity,
(08:12):
pulling you down. So over time,
gravity just pulled the weight
of her head down.
And as it pulled her head down,
her spine developed what we call kyphosis.
Kyphosis is an abnormal rounding
of the upper back. For Kylie,
the bullet's impact,
and to a lesser extent,
(08:32):
the surgery to remove her lamina
weakened her spine.
Her kyphosis was so severe that
she had trouble keeping
her head upright.
Her muscles basically were
working overtime to keep her
head up and keep her gaze forward,
Sometimes referred to as swan neck due to the exaggerated
(08:54):
forward curve, Dr. Caridi said Kylie's condition
would have progressed into what
he called a "chin on chest" deformity,
Which is exactly what.
It sounds like, literally.
Her chin would have been
resting on her chest,
and she wouldn't be able
to pick her head up.
What that does is it also puts a
lot of pressure on the spinal
cord because it's essentially
(09:14):
draping across the vertebrae.
And so she could have developed
worsening weakness in her legs
and trouble walking again
and things like that.
So she would have had not only
this postural problem,
but also neurologic issues as well.
Having worked so hard and so
long to regain the function she had,
(09:36):
Kylie could only push forward.
So when our surgeons in Michigan
told her she would need another
surgery to stabilize her spine.
She agreed.
I knew for this surgery that I
wanted to go to the best of the best,
just to make sure the surgery
was done correctly and that
(09:56):
it would be, hopefully,
the last surgery I needed
for this problem.
A family friend connected Kylie
with the team at Lenox Hill Hospital,
a premier destination for
neurological and spinal care.
After reviewing Kylie's case,
the chair of the department, Dr. David Langer,
referred her to Dr. Caridi,
(10:18):
who specializes in spine surgery, spinal tumors,
and spinal deformities.
From there,
we kind of just scheduled a
surgery and just kind of like,
took off from there.
I think they, Dr. Langer and
Dr. Caridi really understood the
importance of the surgery
to me and my family.
So I think they really helped to
(10:41):
make us a priority in a sense,
and to make sure that we
got this done when we wanted to,
the way we wanted to.
Before pursuing the second surgery,
Kylie wanted to focus on college
friends and attempt to get back
to a semblance of normal life.
In 2022,
(11:02):
she entered her freshman year at
Michigan State University,
where she's studying kinesiology,
taking inspiration from her
countless caretakers throughout
this journey.
Sadly,
just one semester into her
(11:23):
college experience,
tragedy struck again with
another school shooting,
this time at Michigan State.
She was not injured in the deadly attack.
Since,
she has become active using her
voice and sharing her story in
hopes of affecting change.
(11:44):
I joined a club,
which is a chapter of March for our lives,
which is a gun violence prevention organization.
So we've been doing a lot of
work there. So it's educational,
and it's also, in a way,
it's like a therapy for
a lot of people,
just because since Michigan State had a shooting this year,
(12:07):
technically, but last semester,
I think it's a good place for
people to come together and kind
of grieve together in a way.
And it's a good place for people
to support one another.
But obviously,
our main goal is just to make
change and make the world a
safer place for a lot of people.
In addition to educating people
(12:28):
about gun violence and firearm
safety, she shares her story.
For those who are no longer here
and whose voices cannot be heard.
Internally, I have to do something because
they can't do anything.
So
I need to do something for them.
(12:48):
It's definitely something that I
struggle with a little bit every day,
just knowing that little
bit of survivor's guilt,
because it's like,
why was it them and not know?
That's a big question.
I have a lot.
After finishing her
(13:08):
second semester,
Kylie and her family traveled to
New York City for her second
surgery, this time with Dr. Caridi Caridi
How's it going?
Good., How are you? Not too bad.
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling pretty good.
Neck feels okay?
Yeah, neck feels good.
The act of correcting that
kyphosis is risky to the spinal cord.
(13:30):
If you stretch the spinal cord,
you could potentially damage
it because it's a redo.
She'd had surgery in the past
that makes it a little
bit more challenging.
In a five hour operation on July 17,
a team of surgeons led by Dr.
Caridi fused Kylie's spine from
(13:50):
her C-7 vertebrae found at
the base of the neck to her
T-6 vertebrae in the upper back.
We have seven independently
moving bones in our neck,
twelve in our thoracic spine,
and then five in the
lumbar spine.
So the idea of a spinal fusion
is to turn two or more of those
bones into one solid piece of bone.
(14:13):
He explained that they cut away
sections of the bone,
which become stiff when in the
deformed posture Kylie's spine
had taken on. That, he said,
loosens them up again.
We put the screws in,
and then those screws are fixed
with rods so that they
can't move anymore.
And then what we do is we use
(14:35):
bone graft materials.
What that does is that actually
forms the bone that
heals together,
so it ends up being a solid
piece instead of these
independently moving pieces.
The result for Kylie, Dr. Caridi said,
is a much straighter spine,
which he expects will continue
to improve.
(14:56):
The portions of her spine up above this will
gradually return to their normal
spot. The other thing is,
now the muscles have something to attach to
You know, before there was no bone back here.
Now they can attach to the rods.
to hold her head up even better.
(15:17):
Over time, he added, this will also ease Kylie's chronic pain.
Yeah, I feel good, though. Yeah.
You're still doing pt? Yep.
And then you feel like you're
getting your range of motion
in your neck?
Yeah for the most part.
This isn't bad.
This isn't bad.
How about right and left?
This is good.
I can do that one easily.
(15:37):
All right, cool.
And your legs are still working
fine? Yeah, still working good.
I walked here in heels,
if that makes it better.
Wow. Impressive.
Now that I'm stable,
they have a lot of
hope like I do.
They hope that my pain will
start to diminish soon.
They hope that I can get
back to those things.
But it's like I have
(15:58):
all these hopes,
but I have to remember that I'm
still healing, in a sense.
Four months after her successful
surgery and nearly two full
years after the Oxford
high school shooting,
Kylie returned to Lenox Hill
Hospital with her family to once
again share her story in the
hopes that it can help others.
(16:20):
This part of Kylie's story, her mother said,
feels a little closer to complete.
We've always had this, like,
weight on our shoulders because
we knew the surgery was coming
and we really didn't know what
to expect from the surgery.
But after July 17, it's like a fresh start
(16:42):
and she's much better
than we had thought.
But just getting her back to her
life, little improvements, her interests,
things that she says that she
wants to do, it's uplifting.
So we're happy.
Looking ahead, Kylie hopes to get back to
her favorite pastimes,
which include tennis,
(17:04):
basketball and most of all,
horseback riding.
It's just a huge part of my
life, whether I'm riding or not,
it's therapy.
Kylie picked up on her mother's
love for horses and equestrian
life at a very young age.
So I currently own a quarter
(17:24):
horse gelding named Blaze,
who's, I think he's what,
13 years old now?
Even though I can't ride him,
it's still fun to go hang
out with him and stuff.
Asked if she thinks that she'll
be able to ride again,
Kylie didn't hesitate.
Oh yeah. it's not even a question.
I'm going to make it happen
no matter what.
(17:45):
That's the magical thing
about horses.
He provides hope. We have hope.
So she has hope. She has.
And that's what they say.
Heaven on earth.
Horses are heaven on earth.
So that's her hope.
Dr. Caridi says Kylie is doing great
after surgery and expects her
(18:06):
quality of life to continue
to improve from here.
On a personal note, he said,
it's gratifying to be able to
help someone impacted
by gun violence.
I trained at the University
of Maryland.
We saw a lot of patients
with gunshot wounds.
It's heart wrenching to see like
a young person whose
life has ended or. Ruined completely
(18:27):
Too often, he recalled, there was little they could do to help.
To be able to help her and see.
She's such a motivational person.
She's achieved so much already,
and she's only 19 years old.
The fact that she's an advocate
and she's so eloquent and kind
(18:47):
of a role model for everybody,
it means a lot to be able to
help her get to where she's
going and at least try and get
some semblance of normalcy.
I want to thank Kylie and her mother, Marita,
(19:10):
for sharing their story with us.
I couldn't agree more. With what Dr. Caridi said.
Kylie is an inspiration and
shows such courage and poise in
the face of this tragic event,
which nearly took her life.
We at Northwell Health support
Kylie not only from a medical perspective,
(19:33):
but in her quest to create
change and raise public
awareness around gun violence
prevention and safety.
I was glad to see that when
Kylie returned to Lenox Hill
Hospital to mark two years since
the Oxford High School shooting
that she was joined by the
director of Northwell's Center for Gun Violence Prevention
(19:57):
Dr. Chethan Sathya.
As he said that day,
Kylie's story and the shootings
at both Oxford High School and
Michigan State highlight
a tragic trend.
Guns are now the number one
killer of children in America.
He added that we need to
recognize the long lasting
(20:18):
effects gun violence has on its
victims, their families,
community and society as a whole
to better implement change.
To learn more about Northwell's efforts as well as
March for lives, the Gun Violence Prevention
organization Kylie is a part of
(20:40):
follow the links in the show notes
that does it for this episode. Until next time,
stay safe and be well.
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