Will you take a chance on me?
If you had the ability, the skill and the tools to help someone in need, would you?
How far would you let someone deteriorate before intervening?
If there was the smallest possibility of changing someone’s life for the better, would you do it?
These are all questions I want answered. You see, I recently got my results back from a recent MRI and CT scan of my left hip, and the findings were not great. Multiple cysts, bone growth on the head of the femur, irregularities within the acetabulum and fraying of the labrum. To simplify, most are de-generative changes which is accelerating the arthritis in my left hip joint. I was only diagnosed with very early arthritic changes back in February ’10, where previously there was none.
I have been in severe pain for many months now, and most doctors attribute it to chronic pain. If you have read my previous blog posts and know my previous history, you know I have been through quite a lot and have had many surgeries for problems within the left hip cavity. At this point in time, and for quite a few months now, I have been unable to get out of this acute pain and its levels of 7 and above out of 10 on a basic pain scale. Before each surgery I have had, multiple scans have shown a proper cause for the pain I'm experiencing within my left hip. Once again scans have given a decent cause for the acute pain I am in. I feel like I am suffering from ‘Chronic Acute Pain’ because over the course of 4 years now, pain has subsided after surgery, and yet when something goes wrong once more, scans prove there is a cause of some sort and surgery has fixed it. Now the problem is; and this is where the chronic pain part comes in, is because of all the doctors and nurses I have seen, they have taken quite a long time to reach the point of operating, and the pain continues up to this point and becomes quite severe however always subsides afterwards. Now this is where my questions start to come in.
I have recently seen a new orthopaedic surgeon, who after consultation, and reading the results of my latest scans seems hesitant to help, in case he makes the pain worse. This is a similar situation I had with my previous surgeon.
This is a risk I am willing to take. Is he?
If you had the ability, the skill and the tools to help someone in need, would you?
How far will you let me deteriorate before intervening?
If there was the smallest possibility of changing someone’s life for the better, would you do it?
Even though I am no more qualified then the person next to me in the field of medicine and how you operate, if you see a patient in severe pain, and there is obvious arthritic changes within the structure of the joint and you know it will only continue to get worse, wouldn’t it be easier and more helpful to the patient (me) to intervene those changes now and take that risk that you may actually help that patient, even if it’s the smallest percentage, to give them a better quality of life than they had before?
I have continued to hear that my age is a problem in regard to a hip replacement, well so is my quality of life. I have none. If you can help, you may actually be able to give me back some quality, so the rest of my body doesn’t deteriorate either. I see a number of specialists for problems that have occurred from a lack of a quality of life. My body is deteriorating because I can’t do the normal things that a 24 year old might do. I am living like an elderly person, relying on almost full time care from my 60 year old mother. I am filling my body with pain controlling medicines just to get through each day, which I barely do. I am slowly losing the confidence I once had to be a teacher. I know I would make a great teacher, my prac skills have shown so. I'm intelligent, smart, funny, kind, practical and fully aware that I will never return to being the person I once was, and be able to do the things I used to do. But please…
I beg of you, please take a chance on me.
