HOUSTON, TX (CBS) -- Imagine being just 20-years-old and dealing with pain that won't go away. That's the reality for a woman from northwest Harris County in Texas. Her life is now expected to change for the better.
Sammie Davis was one of those talented kids performing and singing theater tunes when one day, sudden excruciating pain in her foot completely changed her tune. Sammie says, "I sat there for 20 minutes just screaming and crying almost blacked out."
Within a year, she had to be wheeled around it became so debilitating. Doctors couldn't figure it out. She says, "I went to prom in tennis shoes graduated in a wheel chair." Nothing had helped.
Then this UT San Antonio student had to stop working and going to school. She was bedridden until she met Dr. Ioannis Skaribas. He says, "She was unable to walk; she was going around in a motorized scooter."
So Skaribus put a trial spinal cord stimulation device in Sammie's back. Turns out Sammie's nerves were misfiring sending pain signals all the time. The device acts like a blocker that doesn't use pain medication.
Skaribus says, "It sends electrical impulses to the spinal cord and it blocks this painful signals."
And the result is she's walking. It floored everyone. Sammie's mother Pat Davis says, "She said I don't have any pain in my foot for the first time. And that really got to me for the first time she was comfortable."
Skaribus says, "The fact that she wasn't walking for 3 years and then she was walking around a couple of days after a trial is absolutely remarkable."
U next is a second surgery to get rid of wires and put a smaller device inside her back.
Sammie can't wait. She's walked long enough in specialized shoes. Sammie says, "I have my eyes set on a pair of Betsy Johnson pumps."
She's ready to step back into her life.