Help Natalie with her spinal surgery

For those who don't know, my wife has been in lots of pain for the past three months due to two herniated disks within her cervical spine. The pain is in her neck, shoulder and arm and as her nerves have been compressed for months, she has lost sensation/strength in her right hand. Sitting, standing and sleeping are all painful and none offer relief. Although some nerves in her hand may not be repairable, the neurosurgeons believe that her index and thumb may be salvageable if she undergoes surgery in the next few weeks.

The challenge in Canada is that our funded healthcare system only pays for cervical discectomy and fusion. As she needs two disks removed, having two fusions one on top of another would significantly limit her neck movements, would increase her risk for a third fusion in the adjacent disks in near future and prevent her from continuing to do the things she loves like running and obstacle course racing. Other countries have been doing disk replacements for 30+ years as it is a better alternative to fusion. Health Quality Ontario published an article in 2019 asking the Ministry of Health to support and pay for disk replacements rather than fusions due to better outcomes and quality of life for those who have had it done (future gold standard and link below). We have found a neurosurgeon in Quebec at the Canadian Spine Institute who stressed to us the challenges Natalie would face should she undergo a double fusion at such a young age. Natalie is a candidate for disk replacement and to save some of her nerves, he has booked her surgery on December 13th!! As Canada still only pays for fusions, we will have to pay the $42,000 for the surgery and will need to stay in Quebec for a while for her recovery/rehabilitation. We have been asked by some of you how you can help. If you are interested, we would welcome any financial support towards her much needed major surgery. My wife is a very proud woman who tries hard not to show the pain that she is in, to complain about her situation or even to ask for anything as she doesn't want to be a burden. She is one who places the needs of others above her own and will go out of her way to help others. Although our family is scared about this upcoming spinal surgery, we are happy we have found a neurosurgeon who does disk replacement in Canada which will give her a chance at a better quality of life. Our boys would love nothing more for their mom to feel better and are looking forward to playing with her again. Thank you for considering.

https://www.hqontario.ca/Portals/0/Documents/evidence/reports/hta-cervical-artificial-disc-replacement.pdf