If you have been following my blog in these past few weeks, you must have seen that I talk about nerve compression a lot and you are also likely to know why. I got to learn and write about this abnormal health issue that affects nerves recently because my sister happens to be suffering from one currently.
For the sake of those that are just reading this article one-off, nerve compression occurs when a nerve in the human body is pinched by the surrounding tissues - it could be muscles or bone. Consequently, the person who suffers from this ailment could experience pain as one of the major symptoms.
Symptoms of nerve compression could vary from individual to individual and it also depends on the part of the body the compression is happening. Apart from pain that could become chronic with time, other symptoms include numbness in the affected area, decreased muscle strength in the area, and partial loss of control of the area which could be hand or leg.
We have been battling my sister's case for a while. The nerve compression started as lower back pain and gradually, the pain started radiating to the left leg. She did an x-ray of the spine and she was informed that the lower back pain is due to osteoarthritis - a condition that has also been found to be genetic. She was prescribed some drugs and recommended a change of lifestyle in order to manage the situation and prevent it from getting worse.
Some weeks after, she started feeling some pains in her left leg. It started slowly until it became unbearable. She visited the hospital and after several to and fros, she was prescribed an MRI scan. The result of the scan is in the screenshot below.
According to the doctor in charge of her case, the only way out is surgery if she's to stand a chance of the pain being alleviated. Due to the comment of 
Zero!
As for the cost of the surgery, we were told to prepare about $4,000 - a really huge sum considering our economic background. A date was fixed for the surgery irrespective of our input. One would think that it is going to be free.
She was prescribed a drug to temporarily alleviate the pain - pregabalin. I am kind of familiar with the drug during my days as a pharmacy technician, even though I erroneously thought it is one of those strong painkillers. Instead, the drug works by blocking pain signals that the neurons send to the brain - neuropathic pains.
I and other family members have been running helter-skelter for funds since then. Due to the scarcity of neurosurgeons in Nigeria (Nigeria has got only about 70 for a population estimated to be over 200 million), we either try to come up with the funds on the given date or run the risk of having to wait for a long time before fixing another date.
The initial date was the 1st of November - this last Tuesday. Even though we were only able to come up with a small percentage of the required funds, we proceeded to the hospital as scheduled. She was admitted and with the little funds that we had, we started buying the list of recommended drugs and surgery paraphernalia.
Some of the drugs and surgery paraphernalia bought so far.
Thereafter, we were told to deposit some initial amount of money in order for the surgery to take place the following day. To cut the long story short, all our efforts to raise funds yielded no results. We pleaded for more time to be able to raise the fund and we were given another opportunity until the 7th of November, which is tomorrow.
We started exploring every possible scenario. If the surgery is not done, it means she will be stuck with a drug that costs us about $12 a week. We may not be able to come up with the surgery funds within a short period, but $12 a week seems feasible for us. But for how long?
Next, I started researching the possible effects of long-term usage of pregabalin. According to my findings, the possible effects associated with the drug are mainly withdrawal symptoms. A sudden stoppage of the drug may cause sleep disorders, seizures, headaches, and so on. Hence, doses are usually decreased gradually in order to minimize the effects due to withdrawal.
We have been able to come up with more funds, even though still some ways off the required amount. We are hoping that we could plead for the surgery to be done. We will keep sourcing and come up with the funds later.
Let's see how tomorrow would go.