After Robot-Assisted Surgery, Local Man Beats Back Pain, Gets Back to Living Life

For Vegas resident Danial Eros, 45, back pain had become a dominating force in his life. He recalls, “I’ve had some lower back issues on and off since high school, but for the most part I was able to get through life without any dramatic, life-interrupting circumstances up until a couple of years ago, where it essentially crippled me. I was stuck in bed for a month. I literally wasn’t able to get up. It was so bad, I could hardly move.”
 
Danial says that over the years, he and Hugh L. Bassewitz, M.D., his doctor and friend, had tried every nonoperative treatment for his condition, including years of chiropractic care, physical therapy, acupressure, acupuncture, and injections. He explains that “Dr. Bassewitz is a pretty conservative surgeon, and he wanted to exhaust all options before we went ahead with surgery. I think he wanted to make sure that he had a strategy that was going to yield a very high level of success.” 

With the advent of robotic-assisted surgical technology, Dr. Bassewitz knew that Danial would now be an excellent candidate for spine surgery, and Danial agreed.

“I made sure that I did everything that I could to get Dr. Bassewitz to do the surgery. He’s the person that I trusted,” Danial explains. “It’s like brain surgery, you don’t really want just any person operating on your brain, and it doesn’t really change all that much when you’re talking about your spine. So, for me, I had to feel comfortable with who was going to go in and do this. He’s super conservative."

“I can’t say enough positive things about Dr. Bassewitz. He’s just a class act. You can tell that he cares so much; he obviously wants the outcome to go well. I just felt like I was in good hands the whole time,” Danial continues, “I felt super calm about the whole thing with him in charge.” 

In July, Danial underwent a minimally invasive lumbar procedure using innovative robotic-assisted technology with Dr. Bassewitz. Two weeks later, he was back at work.

“I think I benefitted quite a bit by minimizing how invasive the procedure would be,” says Danial. “I think my recovery would have been a lot worse, and I think that using the robot has yielded higher levels of success.” 

Three weeks after surgery, Danial was able to go to Europe on holiday with his family. A fact he finds truly remarkable. Later, in August, he went for his first mountain-biking ride in years, something he loved to do but couldn’t get back to before.

“The highlight for me was that immediately upon waking up, I knew that I was better,” says Danial. “I remember one of the nurses had cold hands when she touched my feet, and I was blown away because I wouldn’t have noticed that sensation before. I thought ‘Wow, this is impressive.’ I knew that things were better. The pain I had experienced in my lower back for years was gone, and I had a lot more sensation in my legs and my feet, which I was really, really happy about.”

To find out if you’re a candidate for robot-assisted spine fusion, schedule an appointment with Dr. Bassewitz by calling (702) 731-4088 or schedule an appointment online.