Patient recovery after car accident
Neurosurgeons are fortunate to be in a unique position to truly help people achieve an often life-changing improvement to their quality of life. I recently found myself presented with such an opportunity, and my patient’s kindness, appreciation, and fortitude to persevere for his family touched my heart. He allowed me to share his story, and needless to say, I took my daughters to the park that weekend and thought of his recovery as we walked and played.
“My situation was definitely a blessing in disguise. I was in a terrible car accident. I wasn’t able to walk or move around like I usually would be able to. While doing the MRI to find out what was causing this, they found a mass that was pushing on my spine.”
“Lucky enough I was referred to Dr. Nagasawa who was going to be performing the surgery. Obviously, I was terrified knowing that this was a big surgery that I would have to do. After meeting with him a few times to talk about what approach we would take for the surgery and also the risks that come into play, I felt much more at ease just by his professionalism. Now I’m in the recovery process and I’m walking again thank god, even though it’s with a walker for now. My legs are so much stronger and I’m getting stronger every day.”
“I will also like to just say thank you again to Dr. Nagasawa for doing such a good job and for actually coming in to the hospital every day to check on me to see how my recovery was going. Being a dad is the most important thing to me and I’m forever grateful to have another chance to just walk in the park with my daughter. God bless!”
This was a young gentleman in his 30s with progressive weakness for 3 months after a car accident. He eventually presented to the hospital after no longer being able to walk (requiring a wheelchair the past week) and MRI revealed a mass with severe compression of his spinal cord. He was taken urgently for tumor resection and stabilization of his spine. By the next day, his leg numbness/weakness had improved and he soon began walking again with a walker. Pathology revealed an extremely rare tumor (Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumor) with only a few documented cases in the literature for the thoracic spine, but fortunately a benign lesion (non-cancerous). He has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but we couldn’t be more pleased with his progress thus far!