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It was July 27, 1990. That is the anniversary I dread each year. My family, which included my wife Donna who was 3 months pregnant, my little girl Lindsay who was 22 months old and myself had decided to take a weekend holiday up to my parents place. They own a Trailer park that is near to a resort area with lots of beaches. We were also going to meet my sister and her husband and kids and have a good time.
We all met up there and partied it up that night. The next day we thought we would all head for the beach. My brother in law had just bought a new Firebird all done up so of course that meant that the boys would ride together in his car and the girls would go in the Van. That went smoothly. We all went to the beach and had a good time.
When it was time to go we decided that the moms and kids would go back in the Van and Larry and I would pick up some steaks to barbecue and meet them back at the Trailer park. Thats when my memory gets a little blurry. I'm not sure if we even got any steaks but I know we stopped for a beer at the Pub and started on our way back. For some reason Larry decided to take a different route back and when we passed our original turnoff I can't remember anything except that Larry had decided that he would show me how fast his new car went. Why I had decided to go with him I'll never know. The next thing I remember is waking up outside the car and seeing an ambulance parked in the distance with all it's lights going. I got up and started walking towards the ambulance. I felt my jaw and knew that it had been broken quite bad. I'm lucky there was no head injury. At least I think all my noodles are there. The paramedic could see that I was walking and assumed I was ok. He raised the head of the gurney and I sat down on it. As he was pushing me towards the ambulance, I all of a sudden felt this tingling sensation all over my legs. It only lasted seconds but when it finished I was paralyzed from the chest down. It kind of had me confused. I wasn't losing it or anything, I just thought this was a temporary thing.
I had to be air lifted to Vancouver because they just weren't equipped where I was. When I got there things just got worse. I had what you would call, multiple trauma. My lungs had collapsed because of a build up of fluid in my chest thus causing major infection. My jaw was broken at both TM joints, I had some broken ribs and oh yeah, I was paralyzed too. They found that I had torn my esophagus and also thought it was dead so they removed it and pulled everything else up. So my stomach sits in my chest and causes me alot of acid reflux. At the time they wanted to do an MRI on my back but I was too sick to move to the other hospital where it was so it was never done. I was in ICU for 8 weeks with chest tubes, intubation, feeding tubes and any other kind of tube you can think of.
In all, I was in the hospital for 4 months then it was off to the Rehab hospital for another 4 months. While I was in rehab, Cydney was born in the hospital across the street. It was Feb.18, 1991. I remember wheeling over to Donna so I could help with the delivery then wheeling back so I could continue with my rehab. What a year.
I had always complained about the pain in my back. The Drs naturally assumed it was because of the injury. They just kept writing the prescriptions for pain meds and I just kept on complaining. It wasn't until I had settled with the insurance company and we moved to our present address 5 yrs later that I finally got my MRI through the local Neurologist. That's when I first heard the words Syrinx and Syringomyelia.
When I went for my first consultation with a NSG he just said "Don't worry about it. If you start to get weakness or more paralysis then come back and see me". So I left it. My syrinx ran from T6 to C7 at that time. I was still concerned so I started to research on my own and place posts on the Paralysis web pages and that is when I first heard from Robert McGregor. I can't thank him enough. He really opened my eyes to this monster through his own experience and also turned me to the ASAP list server. That is when I also got all my information on different surgical procedures.
After learning from Robert what could happen with SM, I went back to the NG and told him I wanted another MRI to see if this thing was still growing. It was approximately 1 year between MRIs so it was plenty of time to tell. I had the MRI and when it was read, the syrinx had grown one vertebra. So now I was diagnosed with progressive post-traumatic SM. I had to make a decision on whether or not to have surgery and what procedure would be best for me.
That is when the list came to my rescue. I got all kinds of procedures and outcomes and went to a well known NSG in Vancouver. At least I had some idea of what everything was about. He told me that all the new literature on SM had pulled away from shunts except in certain situations and were now trying a new procedure. Laminectomy and duraplasty. They had only tried this procedure since 1994 so there was no long term study on it and no guarantees. My second opinion thought I should shunt first then duraplasty if necessary. I thought why wait for a failure. Go straight for the duraplasty. It's kind of a crap shoot anyway. I didn't have much choice. The syrinx was growing and I wasn't going to wait for it to get too high then too late.
I had the Laminectomy and Duraplasty Dec.8th, 1997. So far I am experiencing a lot of pain and not much gain. I am still in a wheelchair but at least the syrinx is gone for now. Scar tissue could bring it back. I'll have another MRI next year. If only I had driven back that night.
My wife has stood by me through all this time and deserves more than I can ever give her. Not too many women could go through the experience she has and stuck it out. I've seen more than one woman leave their mate while they were still in the hospital. All of the spouses on the list are strong willed and courageous people in my opinion.
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