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8 | Health Matters: Providence Saint John's Health Center W hen he found himself in intense pain and suddenly unable to move his legs, Drew DeHart says, he was more frustrated than scared. The 40-year- old sports marketing executive had spent months trying to get help for his neck pain and now he was stuck, unable to move off the MRI table at an imaging center in Westchester. Fortunately for Drew, the MRI staff recognized the situation as a life-threatening emergency and called an ambulance that ultimately took the Hawthorne resident to Providence Saint John's Health Center, where neurosurgeon Daniel Nagasawa, MD, was on call in the emergency department. SETTING EXPECTATIONS "Emergency surgery was the only option," recalls Dr. Nagasawa. "Drew needed surgery immediately to decompress his injured spinal cord and stabilize his spine." After reviewing Drew 's MRI scan, the doctor discovered "the most severe disc herniations I'd ever seen." Two discs in his patient's neck were severely herniated and were crushing the spinal cord, causing excruciating pain and paralysis in his legs. But even with surgery to relieve the pressure on Drew 's spinal cord, Dr. Nagasawa feared that the damage might be permanent. In discussing the situation with Drew, Dr. Nagasawa says, "I set his expectations low and explained that he might never be able to move his legs again." Drew had been athletic his entire life, wrestling in high school as a Virginia state champion and playing four years of football in college. During that time, his team won two NCAA Division III national championships for Ohio's University of Mount Union. Although the cause of his herniated cervical discs has never been identified, Drew says, "I didn't just play football—I was a linebacker. My role was to put my face through someone else's chest. Our warm-ups were cracking heads." And yet what would become a disastrous condition over the course of three months started mildly enough with an uncomfortable pillow. Drew was in Salt Lake City with his wife, Andrea, to attend the February 2023 NBA All-Star Game, and on the second day he woke up with a sore neck. "It felt like I strained my neck," he says. "It was as basic as that." FROM BAD TO WORSE When he got back to Los Angeles, Drew visited his primary care doctor, who referred him to an orthopedist. "By then the pain was in my upper back, above the shoulder blades," he says. "By mid-February I couldn't do anything more than walk my dog. I couldn't go to the gym or swing a golf club." It took six weeks to schedule an MRI, and the orthopedist ordered only thoracic—not cervical—imaging. At the end of March, Drew recalls, "the orthopedist said the chest MRI was clean. I was like, 'Doc, I can't even walk without holding on to the wall.'" The doctor then ordered cervical and lumbar MRIs as well. The day the MRIs were scheduled, Drew says, "I woke up, took a step out of bed and fell. I went into the kitchen to make coffee and I fell again." He ended up with the neighbors coming over to help Andrea load him into the car for the drive to the MRI facility. He was put into a wheelchair on arrival. Once in the MRI machine, "my entire body went numb," Drew says. "I couldn't get up." That's when the paramedics arrived. COMPLEX SURGERY Dr. Nagasawa's subspecialty is advanced techniques for complex spinal surgery, which made him the perfect surgeon for Drew 's difficult condition. First the doctor removed the damaged discs that were impinging on the spinal cord, then he fused three vertebrae with surgical hardware. Although discectomies and fusions are common procedures, this one "was unique and complex, because the compression was so extensive," he explains. Like Drew, Dr. Nagasawa played college football, but he credits his lifetime commitment to sleight-of-hand card tricks for building his dexterity as a surgeon. "As a magician at the Magic Castle, you need to be perfect 100% of the time. Surgery is exactly the same thing," he says. "I can't say enough great things about Dr. Nagasawa," Drew says. "I got world-class care at Saint John's. I'm so appreciative of the care I received." He remembers regaining consciousness after the surgery: "I woke up pain- free. I felt great. I was like, 'What's next?' and started doing Dr. Daniel Nagasawa

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