Scoliosis: South Africa

Hola Everyone

We have another request.

A lady has just joined our Scoliosis Support Group who is resident in South Africa.

She is fused from T1 to L4 with a Harrington Rod (we are assuming this because she has flatback) and now has flatback issues, she is now very scared and in desperate need of a Dr in South Africa for Scoliosis, it is apparent that she now requires revision surgery but needs a Dr in South Africa that could help her, we are now appealing for this information.

She has a name of a Doctor in Cape Town who has done only 15-20 operations for Scoliosis revision but would like to link up with people that have seen this Doctor so she may learn more and ask questions, or she would like to hear from other Scoliosis specialists out there that may be able to help.

Thanks in advance to our readers and hope we can come together and help this lady find someone she can trust.

Scoliosis: Orthopedic clinical research chair created with $1.15M funding

Montreal, QC - The Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center has created an academic chair in spinal deformities to be held by Dr Stefan Parent, an orthopedic surgeon and researcher at Sainte-Justine's Research Center as well as a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal. With the help of the $1.15 million in funding from DePuy Spine Canada, the research team will focus on clinical research and teaching as well as the development of innovative surgery techniques for the treatment of scoliosis.

The primary objective of the chair is to develop new approaches to assess the risk of scoliosis progression through the use of 3D measurements of the vertebrae and the pelvis taken during the first medical examination.

Orthopaedic Clinical Chair - click to read more

Scoliosis: Sainte-Justine Research Center

MONTREAL, Nov. 18 /CNW Telbec/ - The CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center is proud to inaugurate its state-of-the art laboratory dedicated to the molecular genetics of musculoskeletal disorders. The laboratory with its global infrastructure is like no other in the world. Its aims will be twofold: to develop innovative diagnostic tools and therapeutic treatments to prevent and stop disease progression through tailored pharmacotherapies.

Dr. Alain Moreau runs the Laboratory whose mission is to develop new molecular diagnostic tools for the early screening of scoliosis and other disorders that affect large numbers of children and adults and for which there are no tests. In addition, this state-of-the-art infrastructure will enable Dr. Moreau and his team to develop novel therapeutics aimed at preventing scoliosis or stopping its progression at an early stage. This represents a remarkable breakthrough leading to customized medicine that will revolutionize the treatment of scoliosis as well as other diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. With all these advances, Dr. Moreau considers that "we are now, for the first time, in the exceptional position of being able to foresee the eradication of the disease in the very near future with the development of the first drugs within ten years' time."

Dr. Guy A. Rouleau, Director of the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center, states that "Dr. Moreau's research work will lead to significant advances in the field of musculoskeletal disorders by preparing today for the medicine of tomorrow. In fact, his activities in the field of genomics are going to lead to a type of medicine that is adapted to a patient's genetic profile in order to deliver a targeted therapeutic response tailored to an individual's health problems."

Scoliosis: Saint Justine Research Center - follow the story

Some good news

Laura's consultant has told her that she can leave the brace off, she is very relieved! I am pleased, he wants to see her again in 6 months. He told her no PE till then and I thought she took that very well. I later found out that she has been doing PE for weeks anyway! I am not very happy with that but it looks like that particular horse bolted in the summer so there's not a lot I can do. I look forward to returning the loo and bath seats though, they are taking up space we don't really have.

A friend of mine facetiously suggested I make the brace into jewellery (a little sideline of mine). That got me thinking - it's not as silly as it sounds. The leopard skin pattern on the outside and the soft stuff on the inside means it would make nice bracelets if I could cut them out! Shame Laura won't let me.

Next is Ruth, just starting on the scoli journey. She has an appointment for an MRI scan at the beginning of December and then we will have to see what can be done.

Then comes me. I've been getting neck pain almost every day for the last year (just like what happens to everyone who reads my pain-in-the-neck posts I expect) despite getting special computer glasses, and it makes no difference whether I am working at the computer or not. Add that to the usual lower back pains and rib bump pains and I think it's time to say enough is enough. So I mean to see the good GP as soon as I can, so that he can complete our particular set of happy families when he sees me, Mrs Skewed the Scoli. I am WAY too old for surgery but there might be something that can help that you don't have to pay for.

Scoliosis: Here we go again

Well, my body is a bit like search engine optimisation, 2 steps forward and 1 step back, I have had the most harrowing of weeks, the credit crunch has really started to hound my doorstep, customers are still not paying invoices from July and then they hav started to abuse me, sending shitty emails and complaining that my work was not up to scratch - ummmm why didn't they say this at the time of invoice - oh yeah that's right, because there was nothing WRONG with my work, it is just common stalling tactics by stupid little people who run businesses but think they rule the world!

My Pilates sessions finished early this month and I have not had any spare money to renew, I am now feeling pains which I am sure are due to me stopping the Pilates, but what am I supposed to do here, life is getting very low and all because some bloody idiot at a bank pressed the wrong button, lent money to someone who couldn't pay and we now have to pay the price, they get a pat on the back and sent on their merry way with a shit load of money in the bank, oh yeah and then the tax payers bail them out, what do they do? GIVE THEM A FECKING BONUS!!!!!!!!!

Really, really un-fair on the tax payers and I for one am NOT paying my tax this year, they can throw me in jail I couldn't care less, why should I struggle during this period for matters that are of no fault of my own, you don't see the chuffing politicians struggling do you, oh no, they take out of the pot us tax payers pay into and spend it on themselves and we are supposed to be grateful for that are we?

I have been struggling to walk since Sunday I am in increasing amounts of lower back pain and the stress of everything else I am sure doesn't help.

Our car broke down on Sunday on the dual carriageway so there we were sat on the side of the road, car won't start and we were due for lunch at a friend's house - great! A friend did come to rescue us, our battery just gave up and it turns out the alternator is buggered, the car is now in the garage with a huge bill mounting up that will need to be paid, gives me a good hounding excuse to my clients to pay the €20,000 that is now owed to us.

So, now I can't even get to Pilates if I wanted to and more to the point I NEED to go there and keep myself in good health to stop the pain, so we are stuck out in the middle of the country with no car now and why? Because clients couldn't be bothered to pay us, all their staff get paid, their office rent gets paid and we just have to wait it out, Chris (my husband) has now taken on another massive job to compensate for these late payments from clients and this job is paid up-front, from now on there will be no more marketing/advertising for clients unless they pay up-front, our small business cannot afford to run other businesses as well, while my customers enjoy 1st page rankings on Google for their keywords, I get bugger all.

I am fed up with being used as a bank!

I am at least sleeping well and I woke this morning at 10am which is most unusual for me, I am glad pain is not stopping me from sleeping like it was a few months ago but as soon as I get out of bed it starts and usually the pain goes once I get going, this is not happening this time, I get shooting pains going straight up the spine and I cannot bend over properly, even when I try to stretch to get something from a top cupboard I feel the pain, shooting up my back, makes me draw my breath in and makes me stop what I am doing, whether that be moving position on the sofa or walking to make a cup of tea, I have to shut my eyes, let the pain fade and carry on, I am also sighing a lot.

Oh well, onwards and upwards and keep chasing those bills I guess :)

Did you guess I was having a bit of a rant? Feel better now

That Micawber feeling

Well, yes - I wanted to try the Alexander Technique but can't afford to do it.

But the main effect the credit crunch has had on me so far is that more people are now having to live like I have done for years - welcome to my world. We are in more debt than the average third-world country and it takes very little to tip us over. I am hoping there will be less peer pressure on my teenage daughter if it means that fewer of her friends go on fancy holidays (or any holiday come to that), but so far no change there.

I found myself in the interesting position of having a. HSBC bank employee apologise to me recently - she rang up "to find out how I was doing" (like they can't tell) and I got so upset when I heard where she was calling from that I didn't give her the chance to say more than how sorry she was for upsetting me! I explained that the last time someone had called from the bank they had browbeaten me into agreeing to take on yet another loan that I didn't want anyway, to pay off the latest lot of full-up credit card and overdraft and then told me that I'd been declined but they would forward it to "a human being" who would be in touch within 72 hours. Two weeks later a letter came, I don't need to tell you what it said but the key words would be "bargepole" and "lower than whale sh*t".

Then the withdrawal of my AOL monthly fee on my credit card took it £5 over the limit and they rang me to point this out, asking why I thought it had happened in the same sort of tone a teacher would adopt with a naughty schoolkid. My offering to write out 50 times "I must not use my credit card" didn't cut it (which is what I really should do with the card) and I had to pay them something over the phone there and then.

All of which made them treat me like some kind of criminal mastermind when my debit card was stolen from me at a cash machine and used, no I didn't leave it in the machine, no it wasn't picked up by someone who by a sheer fluke managed to work out my PIN first time.

This is how it was, when I rang to report the theft...

In the HSBC Operations Room, the Fraud Investion Team are busily plotting the movements of a major crime syndicate operating in the Mill Hill Area. Staff are pushing model S-spined figures round on a large map of Mill Hill with the cashpoint outside Waitrose in the centre.
One operator talks into a headset to another mug.

"We sent the card to the wrong branch? Please hold while I investigate that...". Music plays, a voice tells the caller how valued they are. The voice begs them to hold. Begs them to hold. Begs them to hold. Tells them how valued they are.

The operator returns with a cup of coffee, bought at the Starbucks down the road.

"We told you we would have the cards transferred?"

"Yes, I went into my local branch 3 times and they said they would arrange to have the cards transferred. This was important, because you have to have a card number to access telephone banking and to be able to access telephone banking to start up internet banking. Finally someone at the local branch told me that I'd have to talk to the nice telephone banking people in India to get the card transferred. But when I phoned..you can't access telephone banking unless you have a card number!

It took a lot of talking before someone would agree to get the card transferred and it hasn't come..."

Eventually, though, they must have got fed up teasing this other caller because they ended up paying me all but £50 of what was stolen, because it took me to my overdraft limit so it was their money stolen not mine. What irony! Could have done with the £50, though. But luckily I have just had some freelance editing work come in which has at least paid for this week's food shopping and a prescription for antidepressants, or will when they pay me...

It's all a matter of Micawber maths:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."