Rebecca &Tom Wagner's Medical Fund
Donation protected
So this story is a year in the making. I had graduated in August 2016 with my bachelors in Accounting. I was happy I was going to finally be able to work doing what I loved. Unfortunately in mid-October 2016 while still on the job hunt, I slipped a disc, or as I called it throwing my back out, in my lower back area. I threw it out so bad I was having to use two canes to walk and it hurt to sit. After a month of chiropractor visits, my back was back to almost normal. I went to my monthly visit in December just to make sure everything was staying in place.
However, again at the beginning of January 2017, I did it again. I threw out my back. I was not doing anything streneous, lifting weights or anything along that line. All I did was lift a basket of laundry from the ground up to the bed. I was back on the canes again but this time I threw not only my lower back out but my tailbone as well. So back to the chiropractor for another month of visits. I was trying to take it easy as to not have another episode like the previous one as my insurance only allowed so many visits yearly to the chiropractor. So I tried to wait a little longer into February before going to try to cover February and March for my monthly visit.
Apparently, I waited a week to long. So I threw my back out the worse yet this time. I had slipped a disc in my lower back, tailbone, and it felt like my hip was out of place with a pinched nerve running down my leg. So I went to the chiropractor for two weeks but my hip was not feeling any better and it still felt like I had a pinched nerve. So I made the decision to take the hip problem to my family doctor.
So in March 2017, I visited my family doctor and he told me it looked like I had an SI joint problem which was causing much of my pain. So he sent me out to see a specialist that also did physical therapy hoping the specialist and pt would make me feel better.
I was able to set up an appointment to see this specialist in April 2017. This doctor was very brisk and was not very patient friendly. When I explained to him how I was feeling about the hip and what felt like a pinched nerve, he gruffly told me it was not a pinched nerve but pain radiating down from the SI joint. He told me he was going to give me some pain meds, have me get x-rays on the SI joint area, have me wear a specialty belt for the SI joint, and do some stretches he thought would fix me. I went and got the x-rays done that day and picked up the speciatly belt and started wearing it. I tried doing the stretches he assigned me but everytime I did them they hurt. This was not a good hurt its stretching. This was it was a painful hurt. I finally gave up doing them as the stretches did not feel like they were helping me but making me feel worse.
May 2016, I went back in for my follow appointment with my family doctor and explained to him what the speciality doctor had me doing. I had just gotten my results from my x-ray of the SI joint showing nothing wrong. My family doctor was upset that I had not been given physical therapy which was the main reason he had me go over to this doctor. He was also surprised that my x-ray did not show anything wrong as he knew how much pain I had been in. My family doctor gave me orders to get physical therapy at the rehab place next door to his office. Team Rehab did not take my insurance but as a favor to my doctor they did not charge me as they knew I was short on cash with not being able to work. They gave me three days a week for four weeks with them to improve and learn the proper ways of doing stretches and see if they were helping me. I was throughly grateful for the time they gave me. The PT did help by building my core area stronger but I was still not perfect and still had the pain that felt like a pinched nerve down my right leg.
Now June 2017, I went back with a follow up with the speciality doctor. I told him of the PT I had been doing with Team Rehab and he angrily said that was for my core not for the area he was wanting to target and asked if I had been doing his stretches. I told him I had only occassionally as they hurt to do. He told me of course they were going to hurt if I did not do them more than occassionally, but I was thinking to myself that the stretches I did with Team Rehab had not hurt. He said that according to my x-ray there was not anything wrong with my SI joint. When I told him though it felt like I still had what felt like a pinched nerve, he yelled at me that he had told me that is not a pinched nerve but the pain radiating down from the SI joint. Again thinking to myself if there was nothing wrong with my SI joint then how was there pain radiating down from it. He went on to explain that most of my problems were I was not doing my stretches he gave me and that I needed to loose weight as that was causing most of my issues. After leaving the appointment with him was the first time in my life I was about ready to cry from a doctor treating me disrespectfully, not listening to me, and yelling at me.
July 2017, I was due to go back to this speciality doctor for another follow-up appointment but I told my husband I just did not know if I could bring myself to see this guy again. I know it still hurt to walk long distances and sit for long periods but his method just did not seem to getting me to a better place like everyone else's advice and work had. My husband said it was fine if I did not go to see him again but I needed to try and do his stretches still to a least try to get me feeling better. I agreed. After a week of putting off the stretches, end of July now, I did my stretches given to me by Team Rehab and then started into his stretches. Again they hurt as soon as I started doing them. I only did one set of them and called it quits. A little later I was standing outside with the dog waiting for him to go potty when I shifted from one leg to another. Whether the stretches were the cause or the final straw, my upper leg bone dislocated from my hip joint in that short second and then popped back in. I had my son come out and get the dog and I focused everything on walking back inside as the pain grew more and more intense as the seconds passed. I managed to make it inside and to the couch and laid down. I was in so much pain. Thankfully my husband had already been on his way home when I did this so he was home shortly after I made it back inside. After some time and much crying in pain, I managed to hobble to my bed and lay down. I did this on a Monday. By the end of the week I started feeling a little better so I got up to help with making dinner as my husband was not use to doing everything around the house. On Saturday that same week, I was moving a pot of water from the sink to the stove when I popped my hip in and out again. After that, my hubby forbid me from coming out pass the bathroom. I called my family doctor the next week to make an appointment to see him again. I literally could not sit, barely able to stand except with two canes, and had to lay on my left side almost all the time when I was in bed.
August 2017, I went to my doctor and explained what had happened and refreshed him on the timeline of all the pain over the year I had gone through. He ordered up an x-ray on my hip as the last one was on the back/SI joint and he wanted me to get an EMG done. The x-ray was a painful experience itself but mind you I have not been able to lay on my back at all because of the right hip. Car rides and doctor visits were torture. To give an idea of the pain level I was in, I was taking a nacro 7.5mg med, then 3 hours later a tramadol 50mg, and then two tylenol 500mg meds in a three hour rotation. While my EMG was not able to be scheduled quickly, I did get the x-ray results back. They found two issues within the hip. One was a cyst that my doctor was unsure what it was. He said it could be anywhere from a broken blood vessel to cancer. The second issue was a deformity of the joint bone that connects to the hip to swivel. I may have had this deformity since birth but is now showing itself from wear and tear through the years. My doctor told me it was a very good chance I was going to end up in surgery for it. He was going to send me to a bone specialist to see what we could learn. I was to still have the EMG just prior to my appointment with the specialist. The way my family doctor explained what an EMG is, it is a torture test on your nerves to see if you have a pinched nerve. While he was wrong, he also was not far off. They run electical current through your nerves looking for pinched nerves. The current is not a small current either. Anyways the EMG showed that I did not thankfully have any pinched nerves.
September 2017, the visit to the bone specialist, he believes the cyst to be arthristis. Also he would like me to do more PT for my hip for a month, then a month of cortisone shots, before we do the MRI for a possible surgery. Also to have my success rate increased for the surgery I do need to lose some weight. So my doctor has put me on a no-carb diet. I have already lost 25lbs but I still have quite a ways to go.
TL:DR - A year of pain and misery with no job but my husbands.
I am usually not a person to ask for help preferring to help someone before I get help. But I realized it has come to a point in our lives I need to ask for help. With my husband being the only one working for the last year it has been a struggle. We used much of our taxes to pay bills in advance. We even receive some state aid for food but its not much when you need to eat healthier. Plus my husband has gotten his schedule re-arranged at work so that he can get our son on the bus every morning and then he gets off the bus with his cousin at my mother/sister in laws house in the evenings till he can pick him up. But he has still had to take days off to take me to doctor visits already and its only going to get worse with having to go to PT here for a month since I cannot drive. Plus my husband is constantly taking time out of doing house work to make sure I am okay anytime I get up. This is due to my taking a shower shortly after the first week when I popped my hip out twice I ended up passing out in the shower. Thankfully I only ended up with a few bruises and a couple scratches as he was able to make it in time to slow me down as I crumpled.
I apologize if the amount I put in for seems high but any help is appreciated. I put the $5,000 amount in because I am looking for help with our bills for the time my husband has to take off and I also did research on the cost of hip surgery. The cost could be anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 depending on which I kind I need. I am also not sure how much I will have to pay out of pocket as yet too. There is a chance I could pay anywhere from $0 to 20% . I am completely honest when I am asking as I am not trying to deceive. I just do not want my husband stressing about me, and paying for everything if I can find him help.
All funds received from your generousity will go towards any medical bills, rent, electric and gas, food, and possibly some x-mas gifts for my son. I am hoping this amount will last the next four to five months is my goal.
I just want you to know any donations you give is greatly appreciated. The greatest gift though is to pass it on. If you cannot donate maybe someone you know can. Also know that when I get healtier and moving again, you will have helped me provide for a less stressful time for my family during this already stressful time. Know that I will be able to play with my son or go on a walk when this all said and done. For me this has been the hardest year. Watching my son have to spend his summer taking care of his mom. Plus I was not able to watch him get on the bus for his first day of school this year or attend any school functions with him.
However, again at the beginning of January 2017, I did it again. I threw out my back. I was not doing anything streneous, lifting weights or anything along that line. All I did was lift a basket of laundry from the ground up to the bed. I was back on the canes again but this time I threw not only my lower back out but my tailbone as well. So back to the chiropractor for another month of visits. I was trying to take it easy as to not have another episode like the previous one as my insurance only allowed so many visits yearly to the chiropractor. So I tried to wait a little longer into February before going to try to cover February and March for my monthly visit.
Apparently, I waited a week to long. So I threw my back out the worse yet this time. I had slipped a disc in my lower back, tailbone, and it felt like my hip was out of place with a pinched nerve running down my leg. So I went to the chiropractor for two weeks but my hip was not feeling any better and it still felt like I had a pinched nerve. So I made the decision to take the hip problem to my family doctor.
So in March 2017, I visited my family doctor and he told me it looked like I had an SI joint problem which was causing much of my pain. So he sent me out to see a specialist that also did physical therapy hoping the specialist and pt would make me feel better.
I was able to set up an appointment to see this specialist in April 2017. This doctor was very brisk and was not very patient friendly. When I explained to him how I was feeling about the hip and what felt like a pinched nerve, he gruffly told me it was not a pinched nerve but pain radiating down from the SI joint. He told me he was going to give me some pain meds, have me get x-rays on the SI joint area, have me wear a specialty belt for the SI joint, and do some stretches he thought would fix me. I went and got the x-rays done that day and picked up the speciatly belt and started wearing it. I tried doing the stretches he assigned me but everytime I did them they hurt. This was not a good hurt its stretching. This was it was a painful hurt. I finally gave up doing them as the stretches did not feel like they were helping me but making me feel worse.
May 2016, I went back in for my follow appointment with my family doctor and explained to him what the speciality doctor had me doing. I had just gotten my results from my x-ray of the SI joint showing nothing wrong. My family doctor was upset that I had not been given physical therapy which was the main reason he had me go over to this doctor. He was also surprised that my x-ray did not show anything wrong as he knew how much pain I had been in. My family doctor gave me orders to get physical therapy at the rehab place next door to his office. Team Rehab did not take my insurance but as a favor to my doctor they did not charge me as they knew I was short on cash with not being able to work. They gave me three days a week for four weeks with them to improve and learn the proper ways of doing stretches and see if they were helping me. I was throughly grateful for the time they gave me. The PT did help by building my core area stronger but I was still not perfect and still had the pain that felt like a pinched nerve down my right leg.
Now June 2017, I went back with a follow up with the speciality doctor. I told him of the PT I had been doing with Team Rehab and he angrily said that was for my core not for the area he was wanting to target and asked if I had been doing his stretches. I told him I had only occassionally as they hurt to do. He told me of course they were going to hurt if I did not do them more than occassionally, but I was thinking to myself that the stretches I did with Team Rehab had not hurt. He said that according to my x-ray there was not anything wrong with my SI joint. When I told him though it felt like I still had what felt like a pinched nerve, he yelled at me that he had told me that is not a pinched nerve but the pain radiating down from the SI joint. Again thinking to myself if there was nothing wrong with my SI joint then how was there pain radiating down from it. He went on to explain that most of my problems were I was not doing my stretches he gave me and that I needed to loose weight as that was causing most of my issues. After leaving the appointment with him was the first time in my life I was about ready to cry from a doctor treating me disrespectfully, not listening to me, and yelling at me.
July 2017, I was due to go back to this speciality doctor for another follow-up appointment but I told my husband I just did not know if I could bring myself to see this guy again. I know it still hurt to walk long distances and sit for long periods but his method just did not seem to getting me to a better place like everyone else's advice and work had. My husband said it was fine if I did not go to see him again but I needed to try and do his stretches still to a least try to get me feeling better. I agreed. After a week of putting off the stretches, end of July now, I did my stretches given to me by Team Rehab and then started into his stretches. Again they hurt as soon as I started doing them. I only did one set of them and called it quits. A little later I was standing outside with the dog waiting for him to go potty when I shifted from one leg to another. Whether the stretches were the cause or the final straw, my upper leg bone dislocated from my hip joint in that short second and then popped back in. I had my son come out and get the dog and I focused everything on walking back inside as the pain grew more and more intense as the seconds passed. I managed to make it inside and to the couch and laid down. I was in so much pain. Thankfully my husband had already been on his way home when I did this so he was home shortly after I made it back inside. After some time and much crying in pain, I managed to hobble to my bed and lay down. I did this on a Monday. By the end of the week I started feeling a little better so I got up to help with making dinner as my husband was not use to doing everything around the house. On Saturday that same week, I was moving a pot of water from the sink to the stove when I popped my hip in and out again. After that, my hubby forbid me from coming out pass the bathroom. I called my family doctor the next week to make an appointment to see him again. I literally could not sit, barely able to stand except with two canes, and had to lay on my left side almost all the time when I was in bed.
August 2017, I went to my doctor and explained what had happened and refreshed him on the timeline of all the pain over the year I had gone through. He ordered up an x-ray on my hip as the last one was on the back/SI joint and he wanted me to get an EMG done. The x-ray was a painful experience itself but mind you I have not been able to lay on my back at all because of the right hip. Car rides and doctor visits were torture. To give an idea of the pain level I was in, I was taking a nacro 7.5mg med, then 3 hours later a tramadol 50mg, and then two tylenol 500mg meds in a three hour rotation. While my EMG was not able to be scheduled quickly, I did get the x-ray results back. They found two issues within the hip. One was a cyst that my doctor was unsure what it was. He said it could be anywhere from a broken blood vessel to cancer. The second issue was a deformity of the joint bone that connects to the hip to swivel. I may have had this deformity since birth but is now showing itself from wear and tear through the years. My doctor told me it was a very good chance I was going to end up in surgery for it. He was going to send me to a bone specialist to see what we could learn. I was to still have the EMG just prior to my appointment with the specialist. The way my family doctor explained what an EMG is, it is a torture test on your nerves to see if you have a pinched nerve. While he was wrong, he also was not far off. They run electical current through your nerves looking for pinched nerves. The current is not a small current either. Anyways the EMG showed that I did not thankfully have any pinched nerves.
September 2017, the visit to the bone specialist, he believes the cyst to be arthristis. Also he would like me to do more PT for my hip for a month, then a month of cortisone shots, before we do the MRI for a possible surgery. Also to have my success rate increased for the surgery I do need to lose some weight. So my doctor has put me on a no-carb diet. I have already lost 25lbs but I still have quite a ways to go.
TL:DR - A year of pain and misery with no job but my husbands.
I am usually not a person to ask for help preferring to help someone before I get help. But I realized it has come to a point in our lives I need to ask for help. With my husband being the only one working for the last year it has been a struggle. We used much of our taxes to pay bills in advance. We even receive some state aid for food but its not much when you need to eat healthier. Plus my husband has gotten his schedule re-arranged at work so that he can get our son on the bus every morning and then he gets off the bus with his cousin at my mother/sister in laws house in the evenings till he can pick him up. But he has still had to take days off to take me to doctor visits already and its only going to get worse with having to go to PT here for a month since I cannot drive. Plus my husband is constantly taking time out of doing house work to make sure I am okay anytime I get up. This is due to my taking a shower shortly after the first week when I popped my hip out twice I ended up passing out in the shower. Thankfully I only ended up with a few bruises and a couple scratches as he was able to make it in time to slow me down as I crumpled.
I apologize if the amount I put in for seems high but any help is appreciated. I put the $5,000 amount in because I am looking for help with our bills for the time my husband has to take off and I also did research on the cost of hip surgery. The cost could be anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 depending on which I kind I need. I am also not sure how much I will have to pay out of pocket as yet too. There is a chance I could pay anywhere from $0 to 20% . I am completely honest when I am asking as I am not trying to deceive. I just do not want my husband stressing about me, and paying for everything if I can find him help.
All funds received from your generousity will go towards any medical bills, rent, electric and gas, food, and possibly some x-mas gifts for my son. I am hoping this amount will last the next four to five months is my goal.
I just want you to know any donations you give is greatly appreciated. The greatest gift though is to pass it on. If you cannot donate maybe someone you know can. Also know that when I get healtier and moving again, you will have helped me provide for a less stressful time for my family during this already stressful time. Know that I will be able to play with my son or go on a walk when this all said and done. For me this has been the hardest year. Watching my son have to spend his summer taking care of his mom. Plus I was not able to watch him get on the bus for his first day of school this year or attend any school functions with him.
Organizer
Rebecca Wagner
Organizer
Battle Creek, MI
