 On the eve of her second triathlon in high school, Jessica Bea Hillis' ankle began swelling from an old stress fracture. At 22, after two unsuccessful surgeries during high school and college, she turned to Dr. Sam A. Labib, MD, assistant professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Emory University, who specializes in knee and foot surgery at the Emory Sports Medicine Center in Atlanta.
"My dad, Dr. David Guttman, a pediatrician in Tallahassee, Florida, talked to experts in the field and our health insurance company and chose Dr. Labib, a leading sports medicine specialist, to perform the third operation in August 2005," says Jessica.
"Before the surgery, I'd been limping," notes the freelance artist, who moved from Tallahassee to Little Five Points in Atlanta after her wedding on June 18, 2006. "It got so bad I couldn't walk to my car without it hurting. Now I'm biking, doing yoga and I've been able to take lots of walks around the park. I don't have to limp, and it's a relief not to think about my ankle, which has been hurting me for the past five years. Thanks to Dr. Labib, I was able to dance at my wedding with the people who were important to me."
 The surgery, called "Fresh Osteochondral Allograft Implantation for Massive OCD of the Talus," was done to replace Jessica's damaged bone and cartilage with fresh cadaver tissue.
"For this procedure to be successful, both Jessica and I had to be on call and ready to proceed once a 'match' was found," says Dr. Labib. "Once a match was located, we had a seven-day window to implant the replacement tissue into her ankle. The procedure is very technical and success depends on replacing the piece missing with the allograft to match exactly.
"She has been an ideal patient and followed our instructions to the letter," adds Dr. Labib. "It makes me very happy to see her doing so well."
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