Help Steve Ross End 4 Years of Debilitating Pain

Steve Ross has not had a proper night’s rest in nearly four years. The 51 year old former business owner catnaps for twenty to thirty minutes at a time before being woken by debilitating pain, a constant reminder of a medical misadventure four years ago when he was operated on for an inner groin hernia.

He takes a cocktail of 22 tablets a day to manage his pain, prescription drugs that are more than enough to kill a normal person. Steve’s condition is not terminal but it is a chronic condition that will stay with him until the end of his natural life.

“It was such a simple thing”, explains Helena, Steve’s wife of 18 years. “One of our pet sheep escaped and Steve being the strong man he was, picked it up and chucked it back over the fence where it belonged, and pulled a hernia in the process.”

He was admitted to hospital for surgery in late October 2011 but experienced excruciating pain four hours into his recovery. His testes were swollen and his infected right testicle was removed a week later. It was a terrible time for Steve and his family, his mother had had a massive heart attack and was on life support. “My surgeon wanted to operate straight away but Mum was dying, so I delayed the surgery.”

The operation proved futile, further infection set in and Steve awoke from the anaesthetic to more pain than before. Two more surgeries followed to rectify the original surgery but proved unsuccessful, and may have worsened his condition. After fighting to prove that the “pain wasn’t just in my head, it was real”, Steve and his doctors have exhausted every medical and surgical option open to him in New Zealand – none of which have been successful in alleviating his chronic groin pain. He and Helena are at their wits end, they’ve sold everything they can to pay the bills and have lost the water trucking business Steve used to own and run.

His doctors have done all they can for him and he is under the care of ACC. One of Steve’s doctors Isaac Cranshaw, confirms that Steve is “likely to remain significantly disabled without further treatment and he could remain this way for the rest of his life.“ This view was echoed by John Dunn, an endoscopy and laparoscopy surgeon, who does not believe that any other further surgical intervention in New Zealand would be of use. It is also Mr Dunn’s view that “laparoscopic triple neuronectomy available in the USA may prove effective,” and that in his opinion it was “certainly worthwhile attempting.”

The triple neuronectomy procedure available in the United States involves the cutting of three specific nerves to relieve debilitating and chronic groin pain where past medical and surgical treatments have failed to provide symptomatic relief. Steve would have to personally raise funds in New Zealand for this surgical procedure. “I just want my life back, and I want to work again. I can’t leave the house because I’m on crutches and in a wheelchair because the pain is so bad.”

Dr Marcus Platts-Mills, a friend and advocate of Steve’s has approached a registered New Zealand charity to fund raise and administer the funds needed for Steve’s surgery at the UCLA Hospital in California where over 700 triple neuronectomies have been performed.

Life After Cancer Trust or LAC was founded in 2011 to support and improve the quality of life of people who had undergone or who were undergoing cancer treatment. However, their trust deed allows LAC to help non-cancer patients improve their quality of life and they have agreed to help fundraise and administer funds on Steve’s behalf.

The cost of Steve’s triple neuronectomy procedure, medical care, flights and accommodation for him and a carer is estimated to be around NZD $200,000 and takes into account some additional costs should complications arise post-surgery.

Dr Platts-Mills explains that “we have estimated a recovery time in California of 5-7 days before Steve and his carer board a plane to come home. Although we hope for the best possible result, we also have to be careful to raise enough funds to cover any extra medical care that Steve might need after his operation and this includes nursing care also.”

NZD $200,000 might seem a lot but it is a rare procedure and the last chance for sufferers like Steve, and it is certainly less than the estimated $400,000 that Steve thinks ACC has expended on his care over the last four years. Without this procedure, many more millions will need to be spent in supporting Steve till the end of his natural life.

“I want to work again and be pain free, I’m holding on to that image of me walking off that plane when I land in Auckland with a big smile on my face, because I had the surgery. That’s what I hope for, and that’s what my family is hoping for.”