You can pass. It is unlikely, but it can happen. Do you know the medication leaflets, which have a lot of possible side effects that take away the desire to drink anything? Because even to take your headache you have to think twice, if you are one of those who reads ... Well, in the case of epidural analgesia the same thing happens: it has a series of serious side effects that sometimes happen, and the case we tell you today, that of Irrum Jetha, It is one of them.
Irrum is a woman who went to give birth in the hospital to her daughter Amelie and although she was happy to enter two and leave three, she suffered a consequence of the analgesia she did not expect: "I put the epidural to relieve the pain of childbirth and left me in a wheelchair". Now, after two years, ask for help to walk again.
The epidural was by medical indication
It all happened in August 2014, in England. As we read in 20 minutes, Jetha was controlled during pregnancy not only by knowing how her daughter's health was, but also her own. At 19 years of age they had to intervene in the heart to replace the pulmonary valve, and considered that it was best for her to put on the epidural to reduce the stress that childbirth could cause in her heart.
She obviously agreed, and the delivery was as expected, with no added risks for her and well for the girl. However, after delivery, he told them that he did not feel his legs, that he noticed them strangely. They told him it was normal, that the usual thing after analgesia is that: being able to move them, but with less sensitivity.
But the next day the thing did not improve and she was transferred to another hospital for tests. They saw that he had suffered an epidural hematoma, an accumulation of blood in the area of analgesia, which caused him that inability to walk.
Can this happen in case you get an epidural?
If you are asking yourself this question right now, saying yes can happen. But it is very uncommon. A review of studies conducted in 2006, with studies since 1990, established the probability of epidural hematoma in 1 in 168,000 people (and it does not always have to cause the inability to walk, that of epidural infection in 1 in 145,000, persistent neurological damage in 1 in 240,000 and transient neurological damage in 1 in 6,700.
They are unwanted effects, very unlikely, but as you can see they can happen.
And everything got complicated when they had surgery to fix the bruise
When he saw the hematoma, he was operated urgently in order to decompress the bone marrow, to solve the bruise and to ensure that he could walk again normally, and yet another terrible event happened: not only did he not improve, but he got worse. After surgery Irrum could not walk and no longer felt his legs:
I could not move my legs. I could not feel anything. I was in a state of shock and was unable to accept what was happening. It was as if my entire world had collapsed.
So until he realized, already at home, that when he did some exercises he seemed to regain some sensitivity and the ability to move them. Since that time he has been exercising up to 4 and 5 hours every day, often with intense pain, just to try to recover some mobility. But it is not clear if what she does is the best, or if intensive treatment with professionals who could help her improve would not be more effective, so she decided to ask for help.
A treatment that is not covered by the health system
And here lies one of the great inconsistencies of history: the treatment that could help you It is not covered by the British health system, which is the same as the one left in a wheelchair. So he has chosen to ask for help through Gofundme. In a little less than a month, it takes almost 23,000 pounds, and hopes that the aid can continue to arrive to take care of your two year old daughter without relying on a wheelchair.
As explained in the petition, the objective is to go to the "Geerlofs Rehabilitation Center" in Pforzheim, Germany, to undergo intensive therapy. In the words of Irrum's husband:
This is a neurological recovery center that we visited in November 2015 and they believe that a three-month stay there will be enough for Irrum to walk again with the help of a walker. This has a cost of 40,000 pounds.
From there, everything that passes from that figure will be more days of stay and, consequently, a better recovery: his wish would be to be able to stay 12 months in that center, in order to be much less dependent on walking.
Hopefully so, and that in a while we can talk about it again in other terms: a story in which Irrum plays with his son, runs after her, and is the mom who dreamed to be and has not yet been able to.
