Twilla Standlee

"You can see how my life has changed since I came to Mayo," says Twilla, pictured with her husband.

Twilla Standlee credits Mayo Clinic for her ability to walk today. "You can see how my life has changed since I came to Mayo," she says.

In 1985, Twilla began to experience weakness in her limbs. Her symptoms progressed rapidly — "I had gone from using a walker to a wheelchair in six weeks," she says. Her local doctor in Missouri diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis (MS) after many months of diagnostic tests. But she had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right. After reading about Mayo Clinic's research on MS, she knew she had to come to Mayo to resolve her doubts.

When she arrived for her appointment a few months later, she was nearly paralyzed from the neck down. After Mayo doctors examined her and did blood tests, they began to suspect that Twilla didn't have MS after all. They ordered a test called a myelogram (an x-ray of the spinal cord), which had been done before in her hometown; "but at home they stopped at my waist and didn't go top-to-bottom," Twilla says. (Today, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) would be even better for this purpose, but 20 years ago Twilla didn't have that option.) Using the myelogram to look at the entire spine, Mayo doctors found a benign spinal canal tumor where her neck met her shoulder. The tumor was compressing Twilla's spine, causing her muscle weakness and paralysis. Surgery to remove the tumor was scheduled the same day with Dr. W. Richard Marsh.

"After surgery, they had to teach me how to walk all over again," says Twilla. "I told my husband even then, 'I'm going to walk out of here in a week.'"

She made good on her word — seven days later, she walked out.

"They said they had to take me in the wheelchair to the door, but then I got out of the wheelchair and walked to our van," Twilla says.

Twilla was fortunate she came to Mayo when she did. "Dr. Marsh told me that if I had waited much longer, [the damage to my spine] would have been irreversible," she says. Dr. Marsh explains, "With the degree of weakness she had, the longer the pressure and the more severe it is, the more likely there would be permanent injury to the spinal cord." Twilla remembers that fact to this day: "I would have been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And if you don't think I'm thankful every morning when I wake up and put my feet on the floor and walk — it's such a blessing," she says.

Since first coming to Mayo Clinic in 1985, Twilla has had to return a few more times, for diabetes and most recently, kidney cancer treatments. "I wouldn't go anywhere else," she says. "When I hear about anyone having problems — my friends, my family, anyone — Mayo is the first place I try to convince them to go. You can't say enough good words to describe it. What a blessing Mayo Clinic has been to me."