If you are interested, here you can read the story of how this tumor kind of came out of nowhere.

November 10th, 2019: The first sign of any issue and all that was was simply some light lower-back pain which Sue brushed off for a while as something she did during exercise that day. Pulled a muscle maybe.

December 18th: Over the course of the previous month this back pain gradually got worse, she started to get pain in her hips while walking, down IT Bands and around greater trochanter. On Dec 18th we got in to the family doctor her perscribed Cyclobenzaprine which is an anti-muscle spasm medication.

At some point between the 18th & 23rd we took Sue to the walk in clinicm, Cyclobenzaprine hadn’t helped one bit. By around this time, Advils had become part of her regular diet. They called it muscular-skeletal, or “mechanical” pain, but nontheless he ordered a back X-ray which was done in Woodstock a couple days after and was completely clear/no indication of problem at this time.

December 23rd: Went to ER for further increased hip pain. Recieved a cortisol shot in right hip which seemed to help quite a bit for around 24 hours and then it all came back. We’ve been told it probably helped because there’s a freezing agent with the cortisol shots that only lasts for about that long. No additional drugs we perscribed.

December 29th: Went to ER again, pretty much same deal, everyone is thinking this is “Sciatica” which we eventually learned through our own research is not an actual diagnosis, but rather a symptom of something. It just means she has Sciatic Nerve pain from some unknown source and it usually resolved on it’s own if you manage the pain and do a bit of phyio exercises. This time we were sent home with Naproxen (Aleve) however she also mentioned Gabapentin might be useful. The next day we got our own perscription for Gabapentin from getmaple.ca

December 31st: Was able to get in a rush/urgent visit to family Doctor office but saw a fill-in Doctor. The fill in bumped the Gabapentin from 300mg per day to 1800mg, also thought it was Sciatica, possibly “Piraformis Syndrome”, a muscular issue in the butt cheaks. He also ordered blood work & the MRI. MRI was scheduled for February 19th!! Through some luck and the magic of friends, she was able to get this bumped up to Jan 17th (thank God!)

Fill-in Doc also sent her to physio-therapy. Up until this date she’s been unable to stand without a ton of pain in hips and burning down fronts of both thighs, but generally she was able to lay on the couch all day just fine, muscles all around hip area were constantly sore and tender.

January 2nd: First day of physio, walked in thinking this is the first step to getting better, walked out barely able to walk from that day on. Was bed-ridden at home, could no longer sit without massive pain, or even lay on couch. Had to switch to laying on pefectly flat/supportive massage table with a few pillows.

Spent two weeks in that position, had some people come to the house to give massages, chiropractor, naturopath, streches, etc, etc. Nothing help and a couple of them commented Sue’s pain was very unusual for standard “Sciatica” and that all her waste area is very inflamed.

January 13th: Burning pain in legs increased substantially.

January 14th: Managed to get Sue to the Family Doctor’s appointment, did a bunch of Sciatica tests and still working under the assumption it’s Sciatic related, however, she admitted there is very little else she can do for her right now until we get the MRI results.

January 17th: MRI.

January 19th: Family Doc calls with the bad news of spinal tumor + fracture. Ambulance is called and being admitted immediately to Woodstock. All Doctors we have seen have been working under the assumption and telling us the entire time that they believe there must be another primary source that the tumor game from because tumor’s exclusively on spines are quite rare. The plan is to get her to London ASAP but do the full round of as many scans as possible while at Woodstock. X-ray, CT Scan, MRI & Bone Scan all done by Friday.

From here on out we will have daily updates at least til we get some treatment started. Maybe switch to every few days or weekly once we get to recovery phase.