Help Jaz receive spinal surgery

My name is Jasmine, I’m 25 years old, and I’ve lost almost all of my mobility due to chronic sciatic pain from a herniated disc.

I first suffered this injury from attending an aqua aerobics class (I know, it’s a talent to injure yourself from a class MADE for people with joint issues! I am dyspraxic, which is how I managed it!). I attended my local treatment centre a day later due to the extreme pain and was dismissed with paracetamol and told it was ‘probably’ a slipped disc and it will ‘definitely’ go away in a week because I’m ’young and healthy’. This was 19 months ago.

Since then, I have been back and forth to the doctors, treatment centres, and emergency department due to the pain, which only seems to get worse with each flare-up. I was sent to physiotherapy, which did not help at all, and then referred to the MSK team.

The MSK team was one of the most humiliating parts of this journey. When I first met with the spinal expert, he said he did not really want to order an MRI and waste NHS resources because he was sure it was my autism causing the pain to be so severe and that, actually, I wasn’t really in that much pain! I insisted he order the MRI, and he said when it comes back, that I don’t have a disc injury, we will discuss what kinds of antidepressants I will go on next.

Well I had the MRI and it came back with a bad disc herniation and clear nerve compression and damage that will likely never go away.

I have spent the better part of the last week in the hospital for pain management because I have been unable to get out of bed for 3 weeks. I cannot bathe myself or cook myself meals, and with no family to help at all and a 12-week waitlist to be simply assessed for a carer, I am being left to rot away in bed.

This injury is dynamic, and pain and mobility fluctuate, but it seems that each flare-up is getting worse. This time, I had a further MRI and found that I had prolapsed the same disc, causing almost complete compression of the sciatic nerve, hence why I am in so much pain that I can no longer walk.

I have been on the NHS waitlist for a microdiscectomy surgery for months, and on my online portal, it said I was 6 weeks away from being offered an appointment. When I called to check if there was any way to speed this up, I was told that, actually, my wait time was 39 weeks to see the neurosurgeon, and then upwards of a year for treatment. I cannot do that. My whole life has been turned upside down. I truly don't think anyone I have spoken to believes the severity of my pain and how much it has ruined my life, but this is not living. This is merely existing, and it's a painful existence.

I spoke with a private hospital that offered me a private consultation with a neurosurgeon, starting at £275, and then whatever costs for an MRI if the NHS won't share my imaging. The rough quote for surgery, baseline, is £10,781. I would be able to be operated on in early July. However, obviously, I cannot afford that amount of money. There are finance options, but I'm 99.9% sure I would be rejected, and even if I were accepted, I would be paying back £458 per month for the next 2 years. I do not have that kind of money, either.

So, here we are. I don't want to be making this because begging for money is accepting failure, but I cannot exist like this for any longer. Any money raised will go towards surgery, and if I don't make anywhere near that amount, what I do make will go towards things such as private carers whilst I wait for the NHS, accessibility adaptations, and anything left over for charities.