Margie's Story

For two years the pain in Margie S.’s legs was so bad that she couldn’t walk up the steps in her Mayfair home in Northeast Philadelphia without stopping. That was also the case when she tried to walk next door, or around her block, with her two young grandsons. "Sit down," she would tell them. "Mom-mom has to sit."

However, with a new granddaughter on the way—ultimately one more child to chase after—Margie knew she had to do something about her problem. So the 56-year- old mother of three discussed her condition with her family doctor. He recommended that she see Frank A. Schmieder, MD, a Temple vascular surgeon at Temple University Hospital – Jeanes Campus, which is only a 10-minute drive from her home.

After tests showed that significant plaque had built up in Snyder's abdominal aorta and the artery extending down into her pelvis, late last April Dr. Schmieder restored the blood flow to her legs with a highly innovative artificial graft that bypassed her aortic and arterial blockages.

"It was great," Margie says. "I couldn't ask for a better hospital. They were there for me 24/7. Every day Dr. Schmieder and his partners came in to check on me, and the nurses were excellent. The entire eight days I was in the ICU, I didn’t have to push a button to have the nurses come."

She would recommend Dr. Schmieder to anyone who needs vascular surgery. "He was fantastic," she says. "Every time he saw me he gave me booklets and explained everything. I couldn’t ask for a better doctor."

Now she walks up steps and is able to keep up with her grandchildren without even thinking about it. "It changed my life," she says of her operation. "Now I can do things that I wasn't able to do before, like walking around the block without pain, without sitting down."

"And I can even run. To catch up with my three-year- old grandson recently, I ran an entire block."