On May 15, 2002, Vicki Olson suffered a fall that landed her in the hospital.  

The surgeon refused to verify that the new pain resulted from new damage to the body.  This is a common response by physicians.  

Educating physicians on these realities is part of the reason this film was  produced.

Read Vicki's account below.

By Vicki Olson

Aug. 12, 2002

(Edited by Bill Olson)

May 15, I fell off a ladder, just a short kitchen type ladder, while putting hanging flower planters up in front of my store.   I ended up in the hospital in extreme pain and was having an increase of symptoms that I had previously had.

My arms and hands were going numb about three times more often than before the accident, and there was a lot more pain and electrical tingling in my shoulders and arms than before.    

A back surgeon, one that I had never seen before, was called in to consult, and I asked for an MRI because of the extreme increase in symptoms.   He said "no" because my regular x-rays did not show anything.   

Gosh was I frustrated!!!!   

Everyone knows that regular x-rays are good for broken or dislocated bones but do little or nothing to show what is going on in the soft tissue.   

I told the doctor that I felt he was making a mistake and that symptoms just don't triple in frequency and intensity if there is nothing new going on.   I said to the doctor  "I am begging you to do an MRI, I promise you that you will find something new.  I have always been right when I have had the conviction that something new and fixable is going on.   I have that conviction now.   All you have to do is check with my records and my old doctor that I had for over 12 years, and he and the records will verify what I am saying."  

In the early days, it took up to six years one time for my doctor to listen to me about a very painful lump on the back of my ankle that was about the size of a ping pong ball.  My doctor kept saying that it was just part of the chronic pain and would go away with time.  I finally had to have gall bladder surgery and was able to show the lump to the surgeon.   He immediately referred me to a specialist.   I had begged my own doctor for such a referral for over six years.  He would always  refuse, and in my health system I can't just call up a specialist and refer myself.   

I ended up having to have surgery on my Achilles tendon, which had been inflamed for so long that part of it had died and turned to mush.  The specialist, Dr. W., said that I was very lucky;  if I would have turned or sprained the ankle,  the tendon could have broken in two!!!!   Then I really would have had troubles, as tendons are stretched elastic and it would snap up into my calf and they would have had to dig to get it back down.   

Please,” I begged the back surgeon, "I don't want to have to suffer forever with these extra pains and symptoms any longer than necessary!!!!!!"

I was then thinking of another time when I had been at an auction and was loading the back of my pickup truck.   I was parked in a hayfield and the ground was really uneven.  Like a fool that should have known better, I jumped out of the back of my truck rather than sedately crawling out.  The next day, and for weeks after, I could barely walk.   I asked my doctor for x-rays and to be sent to a foot specialist.   He refused, telling me again that this was just part of my chronic pain.  "Chronic pain tends to move around." Dr.  F. said.  

Begging and telling him about all of the times I had been right in the past when I had insisted that something was wrong got me nowhere.   

I finally, after a year of suffering, persuaded him to send me to a foot doctor.  We found out, after X-rays, that I had broken bones in the tops of both of my feet, and they had not healed right.   Had I been able to persuade my doctor to send me to a specialist in the beginning, they would have taken x-rays right away and treated the breaks properly.   Now I will have foot pain for the rest of my life.

Back to the present, the back surgeon said he wanted me to have epidural steroid shots in my back.

The next day, in walked a new back surgeon.   I again begged to get an MRI and repeated what my symptoms were and how they had changed since the fall.   I told him that I knew there was something wrong that was fixable if he would only look, and that I had never been mistaken when I had these feelings.   He, Dr. E., repeated that he saw no reason to do an MRI based upon my X-rays and that he would not order an MRI.

About two hours later, in comes Dr. E.  He grumpily tells me that it seems that I am to get my MRI anyway because the pain clinic doctors won't do epidural steroid shots without MRI's, because they have to know the best location to put the shots.

The next morning, Dr. E. cheerfully comes into my room to tell me,  "Your MRI looks terrible, and you definitely have pinched nerves in the nerve root in your neck and in the area of the spinal cord.  This is going to require surgery for it to get better."    

After that the doctor started treating me like I was a worthy and perhaps somewhat intelligent patient, where as before I felt that he thought I was either a hypochondriac or a malingerer.   He turned out to be a pretty good surgeon.  And now, eight weeks after my surgery, I am much better.  I only get numb in the left arm and hand, which I feel is from a huge bone spur that  is on that side of the spine.   I had asked to have that taken off while he was in there, but he told me that it wasn't needed.   

We will have to see about that.