Phoebe's back surgery

Phoebe is an amazing young woman who owns and operates MatWorks Pilates, where her life's training is implemented to help people take care of their bodies and stay fit.

This job involves teaching classes, admin, public relations, accounting, day to day runnings, managing a staff of 10 and a large client base of 300 people, this job also involves moving heavy equipment such as reformers to make space for other classes.

Back in December 2018 Phoebe injured her back moving one of the reformers. She tried to self treat it with Pilates thinking it was a muscle strain, it turns out she tore a disc which then sequestered and degenerated further. Basically, this means she blew out her back so badly that all of the healthy jelly that sits in your spine disappeared from her L5, S1 joint in her lower back leaving bone sitting on top of bone, pinching nerves and causing her excruciating pain, reducing her level of movement to almost nothing and putting her business and life under serious strain.

Phoebe is also an incredible contemporary dancer, since injuring her spine she's been unable to dance, unable to teach her normal class load without suffering for it which has also put financial strain on her, not to mention her ability to do basic day to day things has suffered immensely.

Phoebe's surgeon has given her two options, an artificial disc replacement surgery, which is the preferred surgery to ensure she has mobility in her spine so she can get back to normal life, or, an unfavored spinal fusion where they place a cage and bone grafts in her spine reducing movement, and potentially causing further damage up her spine later on. This spinal fusion is covered by her health insurance but still will cost $8000 and will potentially leave her no better off, or worse off according to research we have done.

Phoebe has been fighting ACC for funding for the artificial disc replacement surgery and back-payment for the past year she's had to take off work. This is the preferred surgery as she's still young, she wants to be able to have children and be able to pick them up and play with them, to be able to dance again and to teach her classes which she loves so much.

Her quality of life is so low currently, she's been suffering from depression and high stress from battling ACC for compensation for a life changing surgery that her surgeon has told her she desperately needs.

Watching Phoebe move around, tidy, pick things up she's dropped, even walk to the letter box... these simple tasks leave her in absolute agony, exhausted and forces her to take a cocktail of pain medication which makes her feel terrible.

ACC have declined her case four times now, surprise surprise, deeming it as degeneration when her surgeon, her doctor, multiple therapists and even her lawyer have proven it not to be. They simply will not come to the party, even though that's their role.

This disc replacement surgery that she needs costs a mammoth $42,000. As a business owner with monumental overheads Phoebe simply does not have this money laying around

Phoebe has been fighting ACC for a year now with her lawyer to be told no over and over again. To say this process has been deflating is a wild understatement. Not to mention the financial detriment in trying to get this decision overturned.

If you know Phoebe, you'll know she is pure tenacity, grit and determination. If you don't know Phoebe, she's the most kind, caring, outgoing, bubbly and cheerful woman. However this last year have seen her behind closed doors and she is struggling mentally, physically and spiritually due to this adversity she's facing and unfair treatment she's receiving.

This is our last chance, we are pleading, begging for your kindness and charity if you can spare any amount no matter how small to go towards Phoebe's disc replacement surgery. Without this surgery her quality of life is minimal. She is suffering, unfairly.

All funds raised will go into my bank account and will be saved towards Phoebe's surgery.

If there is a surplus this will go towards living costs for Phoebe only as she will have a long recovery ahead of her.

If we do not meet the target, the funds will go towards the spinal fusion surgery.

If we do not meet the target but we are close to it, we will top up the remaining funds to get her the artificial disc replacement surgery.

Thank you for reading this, thank you for your kindness, please feel free to share this far and wide.

Phoebe needs ALL the help she can get.