Laura Dexter's Story

Laura Dexter is a young mother who with her husband owns a personal training and nutritional counseling center. As you might expect, she is in very good shape because of her own workout regimen.

But last summer, she began to experience pain in her lower back, nausea and vomiting. At first she thought she might be pregnant again. She went to a local urgent care clinic where an ultrasound revealed that the cause of her pain was not a new baby but a swollen kidney.

It would later be discovered that the swollen kidney was the result of blockage between Laura’s ureter and her kidney known as an ureteropelvic junction obstruction. It is a congenital disorder that Laura never knew she had. It usually doesn’t present itself until adulthood.

Laura was concerned that the surgery she needed would keep her from tending to her business and her son. She had already missed time away from work when she had a C-section to deliver her child.

Traditional “open” surgery for an ureteropelvic junction obstruction could take weeks of recovery time. Luckily for Laura, an amazing minimally invasive surgery for the disorder is done at The Miriam Hospital.

Laura’s surgery was performed with the help of the daVinci surgical system...an extremely precise robotic machine that made it possible for her surgeon to reconstruct Laura’s ureter with fewer, smaller incisions which meant less pain, less bleeding, and much less recovery time.

The daVinci surgical system is one of the breakthroughs in medicine at The Miriam that donors like you have helped make possible. Fondly called “Leo” by our surgeons, the robot’s original use was exclusively for radical prostatectomies in cases of prostate cancer. Its use has been expanded to include surgeries like Laura’s and other urinary and kidney procedures. To date, there have been more than 1,000 different daVinci-assisted surgeries performed at the hospital.

“I was amazed at how simple it was. I was out of the hospital in a few days, was able to take care of my son, and was back to work within a week to help my clients meet their fitness goals. The doctors, the nurses and the hospital were great. It was an amazing experience,” said Laura in an interview.

Support The Miriam Hospital