Chapters Transcript Video From Wheelchair to Dance Floor: A Remarkable Recovery After Spinal Surgery Well, my name is Tanya Salinas. I'm married to my wife Maria Teresa and we have two Children, adult Children. My daughter just recently got married. I was able to go see her get married this year because we weren't sure for a while if I was going to be able to make it because I couldn't walk. I was 15 when I was diagnosed with scoliosis and they, they fixed that by putting some rods in my back and some pins. Then I had some herniated disc both in cervical and lumbar and I had to have those fixed. I recovered from that and managed to still play sports. I went to university with a scholarship for softball and I've had a very active lifestyle since then. Never had any issues until, until recently, my first symptom that I remember was actually my toe on my right foot getting numb, which was bothersome but not incredibly troublesome. Uh, but my foot started going numb about a couple of months later, they could not figure out why I was losing feeling and I could feel it slowly creeping up my legs. I was frustrated, I had tried physical therapy at that point with no success. It kept getting worse, very frustrated. I spoke to my wife and she said, let me call the Miami Neuroscience Institute and see if, if we can get in. And that's when I saw Doctor Morgan, when Tanya first came to my office, she had a very comprehensive and thorough work up from various specialists outside of our facility because it was gradually progressive and it was, it was getting worse very fast. So I knew there was something missing. He was pretty adamant that it has something to do with my spine. I had numerous MRI s that came back inconclusive because Tanya had a childhood history of scoliosis surgery. And because the hardware was so old at this time, it had an incredible amount of surrounding metallic artifact. And therefore every time individuals would look at her spinal canal, you just couldn't see what was there. I decided to take a different approach and I ordered a study that's not typically ordered. Tanya had seen not only other doctors about this issue, but she had seen other neurosurgeons. And it wasn't until Doctor Morgan thought to obtain the study that we really found what the issue was. I'm glad that we did because we were able to identify a very large tumor and we were able to remove it. Thanks to Doctor Roth Rock, a spinal meningioma is a type of mostly benign tumor that in this case would originate from the lining surrounding the spinal cord, even though it was a bad diagnosis, at least I knew what it was. So everybody was on the same page within an hour of the study being done. So I think that really highlights the the team approach that we have here, the interdisciplinary approach here. And I think that really separates uh the Miami Neuroscience Institute from other other facilities. I was in Baptist Hospital for 30 days. They basically got me up and walking again. If you let this diagnosis or this condition progress too much, you will reach a point of likely irreversible spinal cord injury at the Miami Neuroscience Institute. They did listen to me. They made sure that I got the treatment that I needed that feeling when I went to see my daughter at her wedding and I was there with my entire family. It was pure joy, it was pure joy that I got the opportunity to see my daughter get married and that was a miracle. I feel like I got a second chance at life. Created by
