I was given
the choice of the manipulation or an operation to fuse the
appropriate vertebrae together, I am very glad that I refused
the invasive operation. (It had a 50/50 chance of failure
according to my consultant.) So it was manipulation followed
by incarceration in a plaster jacket starting at the chin
and finishing at the zipper level. Back on the ward I was
then left on my back, for 8 very excruciating hours. Then
followed weeks at home, I was the awfully smelly one scratching
away on his own in the corner!
When they
got me out of the plaster jacket I was still in some pain
and discomfort, but, after a year of being messed around
without any apparent cure, I decided enough was enough.
I would put up with the pain, which they had managed to
reduce to a level I got quite used to, and get on with my
life. The Naval Surgeons who dealt with my case had always
given me the impression that they felt that I was "swinging
the lead" and that added extra pressure to my desire
to move on. As with all of us, at various times, I put up
with, pins and needles in my arms and legs, lower back ache
and a pain in the middle back area where they had injected
the myelographic fluid.
I stayed
in the service until 1978. Once more back in civilian clothes,
I worked for seven different employers (I even ran my own
greengrocery business for 3 years), throughout it all I
fought off the pain and only took myself to the Doc's when
it got really bad. The worst incident was when I woke one
morning to find that I had jammed up at the hips and couldn't
bend at the waist. Getting dressed was hysterical. It was
quite funny when the Doctor called at my home, going to
the Surgery was definitely out of the question. I was alone
in the house at the time and sort of weebled down the corridor
to answer the ringing bell like a cheap toy from a cereal
box. He then administered a drug into the rear area which
loosened things gradually and prescribed anti-inflammatories.
The whole
charade came to an end in Oct '98. I had been suffering
a stabbing pain in the right hand side of my spine in the
middle lumbar region since the May of that year. This was
not constant but set upon me whenever I had been on my feet
for more than 30 minutes, then it got worse. I had to give
up my job on the recommendation of both the Doctor and the
Osteopath. Shortly thereafter I had to sell my house. As
the weeks dragged into months I gradually sold off many
of my own possessions to keep home and hearth together,
during this time I was renting my house from the fellow
I sold it to! Not knowing the ins and outs of the DSS I
had no idea that I could have claimed more money and they
certainly weren't telling me. The Doctors were still signing
me off as not fit to work.
Throughout
this time my symptoms were getting worse and the medication
I had to take to cope with the increasing pain was making
my head spin. The doctors (God bless em all) were at a loss
to diagnose my condition and in fact I first stumbled across
it whilst researching a completely different disorder for
a friend. I downloaded the information I had found and presented
it to my Doctor. He admitted that, given the symptomology,
Arachnoiditis was a definite possible, but that he personally
hoped it was just a herniated disc.
There then
followed a further period of inaction on the medical side
whilst they were putting me on the list for an MRI Scan.
Whilst I was waiting for this some light shone in the darkness,
Jude had plenty of space and offered me accommodation, it
involved moving over 700 miles, but as things had ground
to a halt and windows of opportunity had closed up all around
me, I decided to take the plunge. Just before we left for
the Highlands and Islands I called on my Doc to bid him
farewell. On that visit he told me that the Consultant on
my case (the one I never got to meet) had decided that the
diagnosis I had come up with was right and there was therefore
no point in giving me an MRI Scan, yet no-one was willing
to write it down.
In Scotland
general practitioners have a more positive approach and,
having arrived in December 99, I got to see a consultant
in the flesh. He pooh-poohed the very existence of A, saying
that it was still a matter of some litigation(?) However
he sent me to Glasgow an MRI Scan. When I went to the Doctor's
Office for the report I was in for a surprise. The dismissive
Consultant had diagnosed Arachnoiditis (the very condition
he said was a matter of litigation) and to rub salt into
the wound he described my condition as "unremarkable".
This had
to be questioned and, thankfully, my GP was as happy with
the results as I was. The consultant was asked to clarify
his remarks, especially as he had done a 360 degree turn,
diagnosed Arachnoiditis, but then said it was "unremarkable.
The second letter was as confusing as the first, this time
he had some further legal niceties. "Yes." was
the reply, I had Arachnoiditis but it did not legally qualify
as Arachnoiditis as it was only detectable at one level.
Where do you go from there?
The confirmation
that I had Arachnoiditis was no sweet pill to swallow, I
was still hoping the source of my pain would be herniated
disc, but to get confirmation and then dismissal in the
same sentence made it extremely bitter. Here am I almost
two years off of work, having sold everything I own (except
for this machine), moved 700 miles to try and get closer
to a diagnosis and it appears like a ghost, it's there but
it's not.
The real
tragedy of my story is that it is not the only one. There
are others, thousands of them, in 107 countries world wide
who are being subjected to the same sort of stress to go
with the pain of their conditions. The reason for this type
of treatment can only have one of two causes:
1. All
the patients (world wide) who present these symptoms are
the subject of a psychosomatic ailment brought on by life's
stresses and strains.
This perfidious
easy explanation of what is really happening is criminal.
In one blow it strike's at the patients honesty and credibility
in what they are saying to the world, secondly it throws
them into a flat tail spin as they question themselves and
try to field questions from their nearest and dearest. Thirdly
their bruised credibility is paraded through a Social Service
system which requires a definitive diagnosis before it can
act and will even then question that diagnosis to the very
limit.
2. The
patients are suffering from a chronic disorder (Adhesive
Arachnoiditis) which has as it's root cause the very diagnostic
tool (myelography), or pain relief therapy (epidurals),
designed by the medical profession and the drugs companies
to ease their suffering.
Certainly
one could excuse medical practitioners who have used these
processes, unknowingly, as they struggle with an ailment
to overcome it; if that is indeed what they are doing? What
cannot be excused is the fact that for more that 60 years
drug companies have supplied the medical profession with
highly toxic materials designed as contrast media for injection
into the human spinal column where it will almost certainly
cause damage. It cannot be excused that government regulatory
bodies have allowed this to continue even when they had
the evidence, from studies performed by the drug companies
prior to the drug's release, that should have ruled these
chemicals unfit for use on humans.
There is
an evil synchronicity here which as a student of human history
I can see only too well. This issue is only a "Quiet
Web of Suffering and Conspiracy" for the same reason
that a lad will lie about breaking a window with his football,
the lad cannot afford to pay for the window. In the same
way neither the Medical Profession, Drug Companies or Governments
around the world can afford to come clean about Arachnoiditis,
they are all afraid of the cost. Therefore it suits parties,
from their high positions of power and respect, to glower
balefully at sufferers in public and thereby easily undermine
and silence them. This ugly ménage sends the patient
on an interminable and unending circuit of medical, clerical
and legal confusion till they finally drop, exhausted and
financially ruined by their struggle.
(If you
want to know more about Mike click HERE)
