Page 100 - South Mississippi Living - November, 2016

GOLDEN YEARS my hero
LIFE DAr. Wittersheim offers new lease
on life for patients
story by Lisa Kröger photo by George Perina
am seventy-three years young,” laughs Linda Holland of Pascagoula. Linda is a woman who doesn’t live life constrained
by a number. She works, sometimes nine
or ten hours a day, as the office manager at Fletcher Construction; she’s a Sunday School
director at First Baptist Church in Pascagoula; and she loves to travel with her husband, Hugh, especially to see their five grandchildren or to see the Bulldogs play at Mississippi State.
Last winter, that joy-filled life was abruptly paused when she began to have excruciating pain in her right hip, forcing her to walk with a cane. After a recommendation from a friend, she went to see Dr. Daniel A. Wittersheim at the Bienville Orthopaedic Specialists. Following a series of x-rays and MRIs, Linda was told that she would need hip replacement surgery. “I had heard some horror stories about hip replacement surgery,” she said. “I was terrified.”
Thankfully, Dr. Wittersheim put all her fears to rest. “He was the kindest, most caring, most compassionate doctor I had ever met,” she says of him. “Even though he had an office full of patients, he answered any and every question my husband and I had.”
On April 12, 2016, Linda underwent surgery. Dr. Wittersheim used a new technique, resulting in a small incision and faster recovery. Within an hour
of the surgery, Linda was walking — pain-free. Following a few weeks of physical therapy, she was back at work and living her life once again. “I’ve been completely free of pain,” she explains. “My life is just perfect. I can do anything I want to do.”
Dr. Wittersheim is a native of South Mississippi who joined Bienville Orthopaedics in 2013 following an orthopaedic surgery residency at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. He has also had special training while in a fellowship program at The Hedley Orthopaedic Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, where he learned cutting-edge techniques from a pioneer in the field.
As for Linda, she says that Dr. Wittersheim has vastly improved her quality of life: “He is my hero!”
DR. DANIEL A. WITTERSHEIM with patient, Linda Holland, after successful hip replacement surgery gave her a new lease on life.
1720-A Medical Park Dr.,
Suite 220, Biloxi
Locations also in Gulfport, Gautier, Lucedale, Ocean Springs, and Pascagoula 228.230.BONE or 1.800.588.0365 www.bienvilleortho.com
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