My husband's story....how a freak accidnet can change lives.

[Guest guest]

Heidi,

Thanks for the nice email. You gave me a really good opening to tell our story.

It's one of the most bizarre ones that I have ever heard and makes a good

diagnosis of his condition that much harder.

On 12/16/00, my husband, Kurt, and I took our two small children on a Christmas

Train Ride with Santa at a Vintage Railroad Museum near our home in Lexington,

KY.

It was a pretty special trip, I had a very difficult pregnancy with our daughter

who was born in October 2000, and spent the majority of the pregnancy on bed

rest. The trip to the train was our first outing as a family in almost 8 months.

Our son was two-and-a-half, our daughter was 7 WEEKS old.

When the ride ended, Kurt was carrying our 2 yr old son on his right hip. As he

prepared to exit the train, he slipped on a wet steel step on the outside of the

railcar and fell four feet to the ground. As he fell, he threw both arms around

our son and flipped to his left. He was more worried about Jayson than himself,

so he didn't try to break his own fall.

The edge of the steel step on the outside of the car came up under his left rib

cage, missed his heart by about 2 inches, and sheared/offset broke 6 of his

ribs, damaged his left kidney, and basically " blew up " his pancreas.

I was still on the train with the baby when a woman came back and told me he had

fallen.

By the time I got off the train, Kurt was walking along the siding, cursing.

He's in his early 40s and has always been a " big jock " ---so I thought he'd just

broken a few ribs...the ER thought the same thing, and gave him a rib belt and

some pain meds and sent him home.

Within 3 days, he was complaining of belly pain, and within 2 weeks, he was

passing blood in his urine.

Turns out the blow to his pancreas resulted in a pancreatic ductal stricture,

psuedocyst formation (the first one was 13cm) and malabsorbtion of cystine in

his small intestine which, in turn, creates " mutant " cystine/calcium kidney

stones.

To make a long story short, we sued the insurance company that represented the

train, and they have accepted liability. Their witness said that he " knew " that

someone was going to fall...that he'd been telling them for years that they

needed an elevated platform, etc.

So, we're waiting for the attorneys to figure out damages.

We have found some alternative therapies that work. Kurt is regaining some

pancreatic function. The cysts have been drained several times, but he has not

had surgery on his pancreatic ductal stricture, because we have found that

MANIPULATIVE OSTEOPATHY helps keep the duct open and functioning. As a matter of

fact, last October, his CT scan showed NO cysts!

The big battle for us right now is pain management and ATTITUDE. He is very hard

to live with and extremely bitter.

I am so glad I found your site. I hope that all of you can help me help him! I

have suggested that he read the archives, but I don't know if he will. He's

pretty bitter about the whole thing...the doctor stories I could tell....BLEAH!

Anyway, thanks for giving me a space to share!

Jeanette