In the News

Miracle Back Surgery

Wendy Damonte, Channel 2 News

A few years ago, Cheryl Seroski started having some pain in her middle back. It got progressively worse until she ended up in a wheelchair and incredibly with no diagnosis. "I started not being able to walk. I started falling. I was falling out of bed just falling over a lot."

She finally ended up with another MRI. This one showed a serious problem, one that would put her in emergency surgery that same night. "My spinal column was being almost cut in half by calcification."

The surgeon on call was Dr. Michael Song. Cheryl had a calcified herniated disc in her thoracic spine. "In the thoracic spine there's very little movement because the rib cage stabilizes those bones but even in the thoracic spine once in a million times a year a disc can come out and push on your spinal cord to this extent."

The spinal cord is typically about 10 millimeters. But at one point in Cheryl's back, her cord was pinched so severely it was 1 millimeter or less. Dr. Song started her surgery at 10 o'clock at night. He didn't finish until 5 in the morning. "We came in, took out a rib, deflated your lungs, put in retractors checked with X-ray that we are at the right level and I had to remove this portion and another portion of the bone and all this pushing on your spinal cord we had to drill that out because it was pure solid bone."

Even to Dr. Song's amazement, after a month of physical therapy, Cheryl was walking once again. "I finally got to move little parts. Ya know. It's amazing. It slowly came back."

Gardnerville man fights to regain his life

By F.T. Norton

Danny Haesaerts is an odds-defying kind of guy.

Eleven years ago he met his bride on the Internet, despite the fact that he was a cop in Belgium and she was a graphic designer in Gardnerville.

Now, six weeks after tripping and breaking his neck in his hallway, Haesaerts is working his way back, thanks to "a little bit of luck, a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of strength," he said.

"I was considered a quadriplegic. Dr. (Michael) Song did incredible surgery so now I am in rehab," Haesaerts said Tuesday from his bed at Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center. "I can feed myself, stand on my own legs. I'm exercising every day three hours to get better.

"Dr. Song gave me about 70-percent chance of recuperating. I might have a big chance of beating this whole thing and go back to maybe my old life."

Haesaerts run-of-the-mill tumble in his hallway should have just left him with bruises — he was carrying groceries when he tripped on the leg of an exercise machine.

"Its pretty ironic that you get a machine into your house to better your health and it breaks your neck," he said.

"My head did a 45-degree inclination and my vertebrae in the neck basically shattered. I knew it immediately that something was really wrong," said the retired cop of 27 years. "I couldn’t move and I couldn’t feel anything at all."

Wife Bonnie immediately called 911 and paramedics collected Haesaerts and rushed him to Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center. The following day he underwent a six-and-a-half hour surgery to repair the shattered vertebrae. But he was still unable to move.

"When I came here in rehab, I was a jellyfish. I couldn't move at all. I was completely paralyzed from the shoulders down," he said.

Now, Haesaerts, motivated by his desire to reclaim his life, endures three hours of physical therapy and 1.5 hours of occupational therapy daily.

Bonnie said she never doubted her husbands ability to get better.

"He's just amazing. Something else happens in the positive, every day. I know Danny, he's unstoppable. If he wants to do something, you can take it to the bank that he's going to do it," she said.

Haesaerts admits that sometimes he might feel down about his situation.

"You have moments where you go to the dark place," he said. "Its usually when you wake up, you start thinking too much. So when that happens to me, I usually start doing something with my arms or legs, start doing exercises, That takes my mind off it. Its really easy to go the pity road. Its just better not to."

While there's plenty of work ahead of him, Haesaerts said he's confident hell regain most of his mobility.

"There's two ways to handle this — you can start whining and complaining, or you can keep your morale up there and try to beat this," he said. "Its working out really well for me. I think its mind over matter, with a little bit of luck, good surgery and good people."