Danielle Fry, of Chicora, is surrounded by medical staff at the Indian hospital she had surgery in to correct her scoliosis in April. She opted for an overseas operation after finding out that her insurance wouldn't cover the estimated $150,000 bill had she gotten it done in the U.S.

Danielle Fry of Chicora is still getting used to her straightened circumstances.

Fry, a 41-year-old counselor for the Victim Outreach Intervention Center (VOICe), traveled to Chennai, India, in April for an operation to prevent the pain of her scoliosis from getting worse.

For the past 30 years, Fry has been dealing with the sideways curvature of her spine.

Her earlier doctors figured as long as Fry was finished growing, her scoliosis wouldn't get worse.

It became worse, Fry said. The curve in her spine was more than 40 degrees and had completely rotated her ribs, twisting one side of them forward and the other backward.

Because her health insurance wouldn't pay the estimated $150,000 an operation in the United States would cost, Fry, along with her mother, Pamela Fry, and her brother, Doug Fry, on April 16 flew to Chennai for anterior scoliosis correction surgery (ASC), which uses screws and a rope-like device called a tether.

The surgeon, Dr. Sajan Hegde, placed screws on the convex side of Fry's abnormal curvature. Then, he threaded the tether along the sides of the vertebrae. The tether was then pulled taut, which partially corrected the spinal deformity.

Unlike the metal rods used in fusion surgery, Fry said, the tether allows the spine to be flexible.

Fry said she had the surgery in two stages, the first for the lower region of her spine on April 19, the second on the upper region of her spine on April 21.“They went in through the side on the left side. I have two vertical incisions,” Fry said. “On the right side, I have a vertical incisions the length of my torso.”“I was in the ICU. That Friday (April 23), they released me to a regular hospital bed. Monday, I was released to go to the hotel,” she said.Earlier this year, Hegde quoted her a surgery cost of $29,500, including her stay in the hospital.

She said she and her relatives flew out of India on April 29 just ahead of a ban on flights out of India because of the COVID-19 pandemic.“While we were there was actually when they went on high alert,” Fry said.She said when she was considering traveling to India to have the operation, the country seemed to have the pandemic under control.“And a day or two into our trip is when they put a lockdown in place. Everything was closed,” she said.They arrived back in the United States on May 1, after 32 hours of travel and layovers.“It was painful for sure. It was a challenge for sure,” she said about traveling so soon after her spine surgery.

Since she's been home, she said she has been adjusting to life with a straighter spine.“I've been doing all right,” Fry said. “It's better. A lot of the pain I'm experiencing is not in the spine so much as it is in the muscles.”Because her spine was out of alignment, she said her muscles were working harder to keep her standing straight.Now that her spine curvature has been straightened, she's been having muscle spasms as her body adjusts. In addition, the surgery severed some nerves.“If I sit for two long, I get tension in the lower back,” she said. “If I can get up and move around and stretch, it's better.”The incisions themselves still get sore and inflamed on occasion.And, she admits, she's occasionally overdone it.Eager to get back to her running, she hit the trail recently for a two-mile run.The next day, she said, “It hurt so bad.”In the future, she plans to take her recuperation slowly.“I'm going on the treadmill at my gym. I'm going to do a fourth of a mile, then stop when I need to,” Fry said. “I'm going to do the sauna, ice packs. I'm sticking with that until it's not hurting anymore.”Still, she plans to return to her job full time next week after working part time since her return from India.“In about six months, I will know where I stand and what kind of issues I will be left with,” Fry said.“The pain won't get worse, so that is huge.”

Fry plans to pass some of her good fortune on to others.Because her insurance wouldn't pay for the operations, Fry had to raise the money for the trip and operations with fundraisers, a GoFund Me page and a Facebook donation page.“We raised enough money for the surgery and all the travel expenses,” she said. “The extra money will be donated to the Chennai hospital.”“There is a foundation called the Sachi Foundation for children with heart problems. Children with heart problems are more prevalent in India,” she said.“What I was going to do was donate some money to be able to cover the pulmonary surgery cost for one child,” she said.

These are pictures of Danielle Fry's spine before and after her surgery. The implanted screws are visible, but the tether cord does not show in the X-ray. The surgery was done in two parts. Fry's trip home two weeks after arriving in India took 32 hours of travel and layovers.