Actress Jennifer Grey recently wowed the judges on "Dancing With the Stars," earning two perfect 10s for her tango with partner Derek Hough. What many viewers may not have known is that her achievement wouldn't have been possible if the 50-year-old "Dirty Dancing" star hadn't paid a visit to renowned spine surgeon Robert Bray, MD, of DISC Sport and Spine Center in Marina del Rey, Calif.

After a car accident in 1988, Ms. Grey was left with chronic, often debilitating pain in her neck, she recently told "Good Morning America," where she appeared with Dr. Bray by her side. When she agreed to appear on "Dancing With the Stars," Ms. Grey says she turned to Dr. Bray to have her neck pain checked out.

"When I went in for my exam, I thought Dr. Bray was going to say, 'You're fine, go have fun,'" recalls Ms. Grey, "but I was completely stunned when his response to my films was, 'Your spinal cord is so compressed that if you slipped or fell or got rear-ended in traffic, you'd be paralyzed. Immediately.'"

Dr. Bray performed an anterior fusion through the front of Ms. Grey's neck to align her neck and performed another spine surgery to remove spurs from her neck that were causing her pain, according to DISC.

While he was treating her chronic neck pain, Dr. Bray also noticed a lump on Ms. Grey's throat and encouraged her to get it checked out. When her other doctors told her she could opt to have it removed or to leave it, Dr. Bray says he persuaded her to have it removed, even if it meant undergoing yet another surgery. Doctors later discovered that the lump contained malignant cancer.

Now free of both her chronic neck pain and cancer, Ms. Grey is enjoying a well-received comeback on ABC's hit dancing competition show. She credits Dr. Bray and DISC with helping her get there.

"I just felt like I was in the most knowledgeable place with the most experienced people. DISC is the highest level of excellence," she says. "[Dr. Bray] restored to me a life I didn't even know I was missing for 23 years."

Irene Tsikitas

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