Marcus Neurosurgeon Saves Boca Raton Woman from Possible Permanent Disability

Darlene Beckett knew something was wrong the minute it happened. Her husband had fallen while they were on vacation in 2018 and needed help getting back on his feet. When she bent over and tried to lift him up, she felt a sharp pain radiating from her back to her neck.

(Watch now: With sharp pain radiating from her neck to her back, Darlene Beckett knew something was wrong. Told she could end up in a wheelchair, she saw Frank Vrionis, M.D., at Marcus Neuroscience Institute, who performed the complex surgery she says saved her life. Video by Alcyene de Almeida Rodrigues.)

“I was in extreme pain,” recalls the 75-year-old Boca Raton mother of five, who describes herself as extremely active and very high energy. “I had neck and back pain. My legs dragged when I walked. I could barely lift my arms to feed myself. I had tingling and number numbing.” The couple cut short their vacation and returned home.

Mrs. Beckett immediately went to see her husband’s neurologist, who diagnosed her with cervical stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column that can occur with aging. In addition, she had bruised her spinal cord while trying to help her husband; the resulting pressure on her spinal cord was causing cervical myelopathy that she was told would require “immediate, serious” surgery.

The neurologist told Mrs. Beckett there were only two places in the country he would recommend for her surgery – one of them was in Minnesota, the other right here in her backyard at Marcus Neuroscience Institute, which is located on the campus of Boca Raton Regional Hospital, part of Baptist Health South Florida.

“He told me that Frank Vrionis, M.D., the Institute’s chief of surgery, was one of the finest surgeons in the country,” says Mrs. Beckett. She felt confident that she would be in good hands with Dr. Vironis. “I also preferred to have my surgery close to home, rather than having to travel somewhere,” she adds.

Confirming the diagnosis

When he first saw Mrs. Beckett, Dr. Vrionis confirmed the diagnosis of her neurologist and noted that she was very concerned about her health. “She knew she had pressure on her spinal cord and that there was something wrong with her neck,” he recalls. “She was very worried about her future and that she may end up in a wheelchair.”

Dr. Vrionis notes that as we age, our disks degenerate and are prone to developing bone spurs, which can cause stenosis or narrowing of the spinal column. “This puts pressure on the spinal cord, which can cause pain and weakness as well as problems walking and maintaining your balance,” he says.

Frank Vrionis, M.D., chief of surgery, Marcus Neuroscience Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital

These types of conditions tend to only get worse over time, and long-term pressure on the spinal cord can cause irreversible damage, Dr. Vrionis points out. “Left untreated, it can lead to progressive neurological deficits, with patients confined to wheelchairs, unable to walk and unable to enjoy life the way they once did.”

Dr. Vrionis specializes in a procedure known as an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, a procedure he has done “thousands of times” in his nearly 30 years as a neurosurgeon. In Mrs. Beckett’s case, he had to do two different levels at once, one after the other, because two separate areas of her spinal cord were being compressed.

Better outcomes with autogenic bone grafts

To ensure successful outcomes, Dr. Vrionis says he uses only local autogenic bone grafts in this type of surgery. “Rather than using allogenic bone material sourced from a human cadaver, which many surgeons do, we create a graft using small pieces of the patient’s own bone removed during surgery,” Dr. Vrionis explains. “This helps prevent the patient from experiencing an immune reaction to the allograft or, worse, complete rejection.”

The second part of the surgery performed on Mrs. Beckett is what Dr. Vrionis calls a “double fixation of the spine,” which ensures that everything stays in place while the patient recovers from surgery and undertakes physical therapy.

An added benefit, says Dr. Vrionis, is that patients don’t have to wear a cervical collar following their surgery. “Sometimes, patients who’ve had traditional surgery must wear a rigid collar for three months, and they complain more about the collar than the surgery itself,” he says. “So I have found a way to eliminate that.”

An “amazing and miraculous” recovery

Recovery from this surgery is relatively quick, according to Dr. Vrionis, who says that patients spend a day or two in the hospital and are back to normal within four to six weeks. For Mrs. Beckett, relief was almost instantaneous.

“I never took any pain medication that was offered me – not one pill,” says Mrs. Beckett, who spent just one night in the hospital and was back home the following afternoon. “I was feeling fabulous, as good as I did before my injury. I felt so great that we were out for dinner in Boca, enjoying the restaurants, enjoying my family. I was walking, feeding myself as if I had never been injured. It was really quite amazing and miraculous.”

Mrs. Beckett says that even her home nurse was impressed. “He had been a surgical nurse for 20 years and he said he had never seen such a fast and complete recovery as mine,” she says. “He also said he had never seen such a clean and beautiful incision as the one Dr. Vrionis left on my neck.”

Calling him “a brilliant, gifted surgeon and a special, special human being,” Mrs. Beckett credits Dr. Vrionis with saving her life. “My surgery was done within three days – I am so grateful that he made time for me, and that the expertise needed to correct my condition was available locally,” she says. “He has such a kind, compassionate and gracious bedside manner. He cares about each one of his patients.”