How a college basketball player's common infection led to emergency spinal surgery
When Maranda Nyborg started feeling under the weather, she didn't think anything of it. It was October, and she usually caught something as the seasons changed.
Nyborg, a Division I student athlete at Fordham University, was focused on her junior year and the 2022-2023 basketball season. After a few days of minor symptoms, she stopped at the college's health center. A strep test came back positive, and Nyborg was prescribed antibiotics. She started taking the medication, assuming her sore throat and mild discomfort would go away soon. She tried to push through the pain, attending classes and team practices.
Despite the antibiotics, Nyborg wasn't getting better. She was throwing up the pills, and there was a constant cramping pain in her left shoulder blade that she thought might be dehydration. One night, everything escalated: She had a fever that wasn't going down, and she was in a lot of pain, with numbness and tingling on her left arm.
"I knew that something wasn't right," Nyborg told CBS News.
Nyborg called one of her basketball coaches and the pair went to New York Presbyterian's emergency room. Nyborg underwent several tests and tried multiple pain medications, but "nothing was really working," she said.
Finally, Nyborg was taken for an MRI. The full-body scan found a dangerous abscess on her spinal cord.
A rare complication of a common illness
Nyborg had developed a spinal epidural abscess, according to Dr. Andrew Chan, a neurological spine surgeon and the director of neurological spine research at Och Spine at NewYork-Presbyterian. A spinal epidural abscess is an infection that can push on the spinal cord and cause the weakness and numbness Nyborg had been experiencing.
Chan, who was called to operate on Nyborg as soon as she was diagnosed, said developing such an abscess from a case of strep throat is incredibly rare. There have only been a few documented incidents, he said, including Nyborg's. The abscess develops when bacteria from the mouth travel into the bloodstream and enter the sterile area around the spinal cord. Such abscesses are more common in people who are immunocompromised, Chan said, but an illness can also create an opportunity for bacteria to attack.
It's a dangerous condition, Chan said, and it can cause neurological damage, stroke and even death if left untreated. Nyborg said that Chan told her she was close to an irreversible stroke when she was diagnosed.
"That was really scary to hear, and I was really thankful for him and the rest of the team to be able to notice that and get me the care as soon as possible, and just kind of, like understanding the severity of it," Nyborg said. "I was just in a ton of pain, so I was honestly ready for them to do anything they could."
Modifying surgery to accommodate athletic dreams
Typically, spinal abscesses are decompressed with a surgery called a laminectomy. During this procedure, surgeons remove both sides of the lamina, or the back part of a vertebra. Lamina provide support for the spine and protect the spinal cord. A laminectomy might leave a person with less neck strength and stability after the procedure.
Chan feared that procedure would make it hard for Nyborg to continue her basketball career, which she said was a "huge part of her life." Maintaining neck strength and stability was key so Nyborg could return to "jumping, shooting, rebounding, playing defense" and more once she recovered.
Chan was able to perform a modified procedure called a hemi-laminectomy, which only affects one side of the lamina. It would give Nyborg more of that strength and stability, in addition to being a less invasive operation with a shorter recovery time.
The short operation went well with no complications, Chan said.
The long road to recovery
Nyborg said she woke up the day after her surgery "in a lot of pain," but eager to begin physical therapy. That process started right away. She had a simple goal: To use a walker to walk down the hospital hallway. Nyborg needed help to get out of bed, and struggled with every step. It was a "huge adjustment" from the athlete she had been just days before, she said.
"When I was getting taken into surgery, I was just ready to get it over with," Nyborg said. "But the next day, I realized that my season was going to be done, and that a lot of things will look different for me in the next coming months. That was definitely a lot to take in."
After being released from the hospital, Nyborg spent a few days recuperating at home before returning to school. She had gotten sick in the middle of the semester, and wanted to catch up on her classes. She also began collaborating with Chan and an athletic trainer on a physical therapy regimen that could get her back on the court.
Three months after the surgery, Nyborg could resume going to the gym and lifting weights. After another three months, she could participate in basketball drills, practicing skills like dribbling and shooting. After yet another three months, she was cleared to return to competitive basketball, just in time for the 2023-2024 season.
Nyborn graduated from Fordham in spring 2024 and enrolled at Bryant University in Rhode Island for a graduate degree. She has two years of extra eligibility in the NCAA because her freshman year was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and her junior season was stalled by the surgery. In the 2024-2025 season, she played for Bryant University in dozens of games and scored 19 points, according to school statistics. Next year will be her final time on the court.
"I've been able to play with no back pain, no complications from the surgery, which has been great," Nyborg said. "It's been great to play without any pain and return to life as normal."
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