Dancer who toured with Madonna able to walk again thanks to Bay Area doctor

TAMPA, Fla. - For most of her life, Jill Nicklaus has used her body to perform.

She's danced in some of the biggest Broadway productions and toured with Madonna as one of her backup dancers. But the profession that she loved took a serious toll.

"All of these injuries were from being on Broadway, steel stages, high heels. I couldn't walk two steps without falling to the ground. And I was a dancer. And when you use your physical body for your profession, and it's your physicality is what you use, and you lose it, it's devastating. It's really devastating, and it's really scary," said Nicklaus.

A Tampa surgeon helped a dancer who could barely walk.

But then she met orthopedic surgeon Dr. John Small.

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He works with the Florida Orthopaedic Institute in Tampa and has performed surgeries at AdventHealth Carrollwood.

He said it's not uncommon to see issues like Nicklaus' in physically demanding professions.

"I think when you look at any athletic endeavor, especially when you get into the professional level, and you have 20 years plus of dancing, or whether it's football or whatever, I think the cumulative effect of a lot of the minor injuries, as minor as they may be or the wear and tear type thing is accelerated," said Dr. Small.

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. John Small says minor injuries can end up causes major problems.

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When therapies didn't work, Dr. Small tried two things with Nicklaus, a lumbar fusion and a cervical disc replacement.

"We actually put in an implant which actually took the place of the disc, which not only helped in the fusion process, which is where the bone actually knits together one vertebra to the next, but we actually improved the overall alignment by the shape of those implants," said Dr. Small.

Those procedures got Nicklaus moving again. For now, she's happy just to be able to walk.

"But wouldn't it be fabulous if I ended up dancing again soon? That would be amazing," said Nicklaus.