MINI: Ruby's Surgery

Christian O'Connell's show is back, and he's sharing a heartwarming story about his 21-year-old daughter Ruby's journey with chronic back pain. Christian opens up about the struggles Ruby faced, including multiple MRI scans and consultations that didn't provide a clear diagnosis. A specialist finally identified a rare condition in the multifidous region of the spine, which was causing the pain. Ruby underwent a groundbreaking procedure that involved a pacemaker-like device being inserted into her back to stimulate the nerves. Christian shares the emotional moment when Ruby finally smiled after the procedure, and the family's experience with the medical team.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I Heart Podcasts. You can hear more gold one I
four point three podcasts, playlist and listen live on the
free iHeart app. Got anything good? Hey, this is the
Christian O'Connell show podcast. Now. I don't know in the
morning whether you're a caffeine drinker or like me, you're

(00:31):
a tea drinker. But we've been on like a lot
of Australian radio shows on a break for just a
short one in Australian radio, just a cheek it four
weeks and these marks haven't been cleaned in four weeks.
I'm drinking that tea and I'm drinking I think I'm
gonna be I think I'm to become a super brother.

(00:54):
That ain't right. No, the drink is talking to me.
There's something from Stranger Things bonus episode of what's in
this mug? Yeah, it is rough. I saw it. That
taste funky, guys, I'm calling it now if I grow
a second head by Friday, that mug of tea. I'm
surprised they went with that mug for your first tea

(01:17):
of the day because I saw that some morning is
trying to take me out of the game, Rusty. That
is not good. I would say I have my Monday Winner,
and I would say, actually, more importantly, my twenty one
year old daughter Ruby is a Monday Winner. So last year,
my twenty one year old daughter Ruby had a terrible,
terrible year. She had some kind of thing going on
with the back and she couldn't walk more than five

(01:37):
or ten minutes. She need to stop and sit down,
and she's I think at one point she'd had five
MRI scans, which is a lot in a year. Different
consultants saying, we think it's this, we think it's the
sacra dio. She would show up to all this physio
she just was not getting better. And then someone recommended
somebody in December, and you know, bless her, she kept
showing up to all these appointments tirelessly and then she

(01:59):
just this amazing guy just said, it's none of that.
You were never going to get better. It's this the
region of the spine haven't even heard of Have any
of us heard of the multifidous region. I'm not familiar.
It's lower in the spine and there are a load
of muscles and nerves that are very hard to activate.
And so if you have a bad back, the pain
receptors turn off the nerves so they go to sleep,
and so she's had a year of bad back. Those

(02:21):
nerves aren't being activated through just exercise. So she went
into hospituiously five minutes from here, and the surgeon said
to her, do you know what the wonders of medicine? Ruby,
we can I can fix you. Ten years ago I
would have said there's nothing we can do. You've got
to go back to physio. And I really hope you
can stimulate them, but it's going to take time. She
had yesterday, she had this thing fitted. It's incredible. Actually

(02:43):
it's the size of a pacemaker. So it inserted it
in her back yesterday and there are two electrodes attached
to it and then on an app she will then
turn on this device twice a day for half an
hour and it will stimulate the nerves that are so
hard to reach and stimulate the neural pathways from her

(03:05):
brain to her down where they are to reconnect to
It takes about six months and have supervised visio, but
hopefully in three to six months ago while this guy
said you'll be fine man, and shall have it for
the next couple of years in her and obviously it's
a lot for her to get her head around at
twenty one and a mom and dad like, what what
do you mean? A pacemaker inserting in her back? So

(03:25):
now she has a special piece of paper if she
goes to an airport scanner, because obviously there's now going
to someone's going to go, what the hell is that
small pouch in your back with some electrodes coming up
a bit? You're bionic. It's incredible now what science can do.
And so we were there all day with her yesterday

(03:46):
and to cheer my daughter's up. Pringles just hail kids. Ah.
I turned up as a kind of second support yesterday
afternoon and straight I just opened up before and said like,
I started opening up the pringles and I was feeding
them and she was like and she she was like,
my wife said, that's the first time we've seen her smiles.
So that she's going out that sometimes springles our nature's
great heater. And al said, then they stink out hospital

(04:07):
ward other people someone's I think it's the dad. Oh yeah,
they just savor it. Don't go for the really sulted bland,
especially just come out of a general anesthetic. I always
say that when you come out of general. I've seen
twenty two seasons of Great Anatomy, and then because my

(04:28):
daughter and I we watch we we've been watching Grace forever.
We're up to speed. We're still watching new episodes now
every week and season twenty two. It doesn't help when
suddenly you're in hospitals. Oh it's not like Gray's in that,
but that's that's our documentary. Sweetheart, where's the little thing
you can just press to get drugs? Thank you having
to adults these days, to anyone else for good reason.

(04:50):
Otherwise I'd hook myself a little bit tired in the
middle afternoon, back on breakfast hours after a short break.
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