Please donate to help Todd and Cindy

Hello everyone.

We are raising money for our friends, Todd and Cindy. They’ve been going through some challenging times for some time now and they need support from their community, as they have always supported us when we have needed it.

In March of 2021, Todd was working in their garden, pruning a tree. As he took a step down off the tree, he heard a loud pop in his abdomen and felt a sudden and excruciating pain in his left side. He just thought he’d pulled a muscle so he treated it like that and carried on with life.

However, no amount of ice, heat, rest or stretching, would alleviate the pain. It just got progressively worse. As time went on, he couldn’t ride his bike, do yoga, basically any of the activities he was accustomed to doing. As he worked as a Massage Therapist, you can imagine how it was going for him to be working every day, treating people so physically. Every day became a battle just to get through. Everyday tasks such as walking the dog, brushing teeth and even breathing became excruciatingly painful.

Todd went to his doctor after about a month. He was sent for multiple scans and x-rays, which couldn’t find anything. So Todd just kept going into work and trying to treat himself with ice packs and hot packs, different pain meds. Nothing helped.

Finally, in April of 2022, over a full year later, Todd had a dynamic ultrasound. This gave him the proper diagnosis of Slipping Rib Syndrome. The pop he had heard was his 10th rib being violently ripped out of its cartilage housing. The rib tip was now exposed and jabbing into the surrounding tissue and nerves, causing constant irritation, inflammation and pain.

By this point, because of the changes in Todd’s movements to accommodate this pain, Todd’s whole body was in excruciating pain. By June, Todd could no longer work as a Registered Massage Therapist. One day he just couldn’t go any further and in tears, he left the clinic he had been at for over a decade and headed to the ER.

Todd made the difficult decision to contact his insurance company and filed a claim for disability. It was so disheartening and disgusting that after he had been paying his insurance premiums for over twenty years just in case something exactly like this came up, they denied him because he had not made the claim sooner. So now, Todd was in too much pain to work and had no chance of any income. Cindy stepped up and started supporting their family on her single income.

Todd and Cindy managed to find the one thoracic trauma surgeon in Canada who claimed to treat Slipping Rib Syndrome. So, in October of 2022, they optimistically went to Ottawa, where Todd went through surgery to reattach his rib. After trying to recover for six months after the surgery, to no avail, the surgery was deemed to have been a failure but with no explanation at the time of why. The surgeon in Ottawa discontinued performing the surgery, 9 months post Todd’s surgery.

Since then, Todd has been trying his best to get on with his life, as difficult as that is while being in constant debilitating pain. For over ten months, Todd went to weekly specialized physiotherapy appointments which cost between $400 and $600 per visit. He has tried pain clinics, injections, different medications, mind-body medicine, meditation and you name it. All of this gives him minimal if any relief and has cost them thousands of dollars.

A more recent scan has shown that the Ottawa surgeon sutured Todd’s loose rib to the next rib at too tight an angle and no amount of anything will help it except for another surgery to correct this. However, there is no surgeon in Canada to perform the surgery.

Todd traveled to West Virginia in October of 2023 for a consultation with Dr Adam Hansen. He is the leading expert helping patients with Todd’s condition and we are hoping and praying that he can help Todd too.

Todd has been trying for months now to have the BC government pay for his surgery but because he had the initial surgery in Ottawa and the surgeon who performed his initial surgery is not a BC licensed surgeon, the red tape of bureaucracy is blocking approval for funding of the surgery in West Virginia. Todd has already moved the prospective surgery date four times to try and secure this funding and it is just not happening. We have given up hope that this is an avenue for us. This means that Todd and Cindy will have to pay for their travel, lodging, and all the medical expenses out of pocket themselves. Todd has not been physically able to work since June of 2022 and has not received any help from his disability insurance.

Anyone who knows Todd and Cindy knows how they are always here for us. They have always shown up for so many of us when we’ve needed them. Now they need our help and support so that they can try and make their way back to normalcy in their lives and Todd can heal from this most painful life-altering condition.

Please give as little or as much as works for you as every dollar will help them on their journey. If you are not in the place to contribute financially, please consider sharing this page.

We give you our heartfelt thanks.