In what’s believed to be a first for Canadian health care, Todd Bene, a Calgary man who had chronic pain due to a damaged disc in his back, recently underwent spinal surgery while awake
“The next day I was up cooking breakfast for my grandkids and everything else,” he said. “It was just night and day pain-wise.”
Bene had a disectomy last month at the Foothills Medical Centre to remove the damaged part of a herniated disc in his spine — something he said had contributed to intense pain and impacted his life negatively.
But after about 50 minutes in the operation room — the approximate length
