Abby Lee Miller Undergoes Live-Saving Surgery
Dance Moms star Abby Lee Miller is in recovery after an emergency surgery on Tuesday morning. The life-saving operation took place after she started complaining of neck pain over the weekend and an infection in her spine was discovered by doctors.
"She came to me complaining of excruciating neck pain a few days ago," Dr. Hooman M. Melamed said during a press conference. "I had to send her to the emergency room. Something bad was going to happen if something was not done. We were trying to transfer her, but I knew she may not make it by the time we get to another hospital. She had what appeared to be an infection that went from the bottom of her neck to the 11th vertebrae in the mid-part of the spine. That’s about 13-14 segments. It’s extremely unusual."
The doctor says Miller was "completely, basically paralyzed" and that "if we didn’t do something, she was going to die. Her blood pressure was bottoming out. She was not doing well."
Miller went into an almost five-hour surgery at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey Hospital on the morning of April 17, and was doing better at the time of Dr. Melamed's comments.
"We are seeing improvement. We are still not out of the woods yet. We need more imaging to make sure the infection or whatever it was is out," he said. "I don’t need to do anymore surgery in the short term, but she’s definitely going to need more surgery-we’ll need to do rods and screws to stabilize her."
At this time, Dr. Melamed isn't clear on whether she will be able to walk again, saying "I don't know. Her prognosis would be guarded at this time. She's made some recovery within 24 hours. Right now she is in the ICU. We need to get another MRI. Yesterday, she was completely numb from the neck down. Now, she can feel from the neck down."
He's also unclear about what caused the issue, saying (per People), "There could be a million reasons of this. Normally, you see this in someone who is compromised, if they have diabetes or [are] a smoker or [have] heart problems, but that’s not really her. She has a very well controlled diabetes, actually her numbers are in the pre-diabetic range so to see something like that, it is extremely unusual."
The news of Miller's surgery comes after her release from a Federal Correctional Complex, where she served 259 days after pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud in June 2016.
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