I’m a physical therapist and I told a patient I cried over their terrible injury; it was a lie

I’ve been a physical therapist for 7 years. I’ve had my fair share of patients with tragic stories or terrible injuries. Below is the story of one of them.<br><br>A few years ago I got a new patient, let’s call her Laura, who was in her mid twenties. She came to me after getting her back fused at the base of her spine due to a freak accident that happened at her work. This young woman was very small and slight, only about 110 pounds. She was lifting an object at work that was slightly too heavy for her, and her manager told her to stop lifting it because it looked hazardous. She said she was fine and continued lifting and the object landed on her upper legs/ lower back, breaking multiple vertebrae and damaging nerve roots. Normally this type of injury would have been a simple discectomy and fusion, but she has a genetic condition called neurofibromatosis which caused a mass to grow in her spine around some of the nerve roots. This mass was likely non-cancerous, but due to the location it needed to be removed anyway. <br><br>Laura’s doctor decided to do surgery without an neurosurgeon present, despite the mass around the nerve roots. This caused her to lose almost all motor and sensory function in one leg, as well as a significant portion of the other leg, and it also caused her to lose control of her bladder and bowels due to damage to the nerve roots that controlled those functions. She was looking at a long recovery, and possible permanent damage with severe deficits. <br><br>Laura was in a lot of pain and had severe muscle spasms in her back due to some of the hardware being too tight against her spine and irritating a nerve. She was also struggling with incontinence and the mental health burdens of that. She came in crying and told me she had been told by her doctor that she might not be able to have children due to the extensive nature of the surgery and fusion.<br><br>I have two children myself and I’m not sure what I would do if I were in Laura’s shoes, and the thought of this young woman never getting to be a mom, having chronic pain and spasms and muscle atrophy, and being disabled without access to the proper resources, broke my heart. I did my best to get her to open up about her pain and her fears. She broke down and started crying while talking to me about how she might never have kids and how she felt like she was failing at her job and in life, then she apologized profusely and I told her “don’t apologize, I cry over my hard patients too.” This was a lie, I don’t cry over patients or at least hadn’t up to this point. Something about this girl just struck a chord with me emotionally though, and I did end up crying about her in the car after work, imagining my children in her situation and feeling a deep sadness for her. She never did end up being able to walk again, but with a lot of hard work she got most of the function back in one of her legs and she only needs one cane to walk now. She also learned to navigate her disability and got an entirely new job that is much better for her. She does still have muscle spasms and back pain, but her muscles have gotten stronger and she is capable of doing most things she wants to. <br><br>I hope Laura is doing well. I don’t work at that job anymore but I do think about her and other patients like her from time to time.<br><br><br>EDIT: Wow this blew up! I didn’t expect it, so I apologize if my responses are slow. Thank you for the awards.<br><br>Laura did end up having a baby, I saw her old chart recently and there was a note about her being cleared to return to pt after her pregnancy. I don’t know how it went but I’m really hoping it went well. She had a lot of pain and spasms, and I imagine it would be hard to have a healthy baby with the mass on her nerve roots, but it could have been removed at any point prior to her getting pregnant. I don’t know, just have to hope she and her baby are okay.<br><br>Thank you for all the comments about healthcare. I have seen a lot of failures in healthcare, including this situation. I do think there needs to be a change. <br><br>And finally, I feel like I need to clear something up… this was not for sympathy or anything like that. I wrote this post because I felt something that I had never felt before as a medical professional, and I wanted to share it. I don’t feel like I personally need any pity or anything like that, I just wanted to share Laura’s story.