Escaping “the Pain”: How 57-Year-Old Kimberly Reclaimed Her Life after Pelvic Fragility Fracture

Life for 57-year-old Kimberly W. changed seemingly forever when she woke up one December morning in 2008 and couldn’t move her thumbs. A diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis soon followed, and her world began to change, including having to give up her career as a physician’s assistant.

“I lost my career when I woke up that day and could no longer practice something that I absolutely adored,” Kimberly recalls. Yet, things were about to get worse.

“Shortly after my arthritis diagnosis I was started on daily steroids and IV infusions monthly,” Kimberly says. “It brought my function back, and for a while, I thought this was the be all, end all. However, with my medical background I was aware of the long-term consequences.

In June of 2023 Kimberly started having pain in her left hip and left groin. “It was reiterated that this was, in fact, my psoriatic arthritis, and we should increase the medications,” Kimberly says. “The pain continued to get worse. I had x- rays of my hips done. X- rays of my spine, including MRIs of both, but they weren’t seeing any defect, any fracture.”

The intensity of her pain increased, becoming nearly unbearable.

“By January, the pain was so bad I could no longer bear any weight on my right leg without excruciating pain in my groin,” Kimberly says.

She consulted with another rheumatologist who ordered an x-ray of Kimberly’s pelvis. “And that’s when he discovered the sacral insufficiency fracture. The doctor said I needed to sit on the couch and do nothing until I could get orthopedic surgery.”

That’s where the next challenge began.

“I live in Bucks County a county in Pennsylvania with a lot of good medicine going on, but I couldn’t find anyone who treated sacral insufficiency fractures. Everybody threw their hands up and said, ‘Sorry we can’t help you.’ I was just kind of left on my own recognizance. Fortunately, I’m very stubborn. I don’t quit, and I don’t take no for an answer.”

Kimberly’s background as a physician’s assistant had prepared her well for searching online for medical information. She discovered an article that had been written about Dr. Samir Mehta, Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at a hospital in Philadelphia, and his work with pelvic fragility fractures.[1]

“I think his receptionist heard the desperation in my voice,” Kimberly recalls. “At this point I had been dealing with debilitating pain for nine months, and the pain only got worse. I couldn’t do anything but sit. My husband and my daughter had to do all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the washing. I couldn’t even take care of my own pets.”

I went into see Dr. Mehta and he ordered imaging to confirm the diagnosis of pelvic fragility fracture, and asked if I  had experienced any falls, accidents, or other trauma. “I said, ‘No, I just woke up one day with the pain.’

Dr. Mehta first suggested non-surgical measures, but when those failed, he suggested a surgical implant to stabilize the fracture.

“I counted the days down until surgery, because I continued to get worse, and the meds they threw at me could do nothing for my pain. They didn’t touch it at all. So on July 8, I went down to the hospital and underwent the curvable rod procedure, where he explained that he was putting two rods in my pelvis. He didn’t mention CurvaFix IM Implant at the time, but that is what he used.

Upon waking up from surgery, Kimberly was soon in tears … not from pain, but because of the absence of pain.

“I woke up from surgery, and I said, ‘I have to go the bathroom. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this. You’re going to need your whole staff.’ Two nurses came in and prepared to help me.”

This is where she realized her life had massively changed for the better.

“I stood up from the bed and I realized that I didn’t have pain,” Kimberly says. “I started crying, because this was not real to me. I didn’t have severe, debilitating pain. As the two nurses stood by, I made my way to the bathroom and continued to cry.”

Before being discharged she saw the hospital’s physical therapist for assessment.

“And I said, I don’t understand. This is very strange, but I’m just going to go with it. And I stood up and I walked well over 100 feet with a rolling walker. And I kept saying, “I don’t understand, I don’t have pain. I don’t have pain. It was mind boggling to not have pain.”

She was discharged that afternoon, and by the end of the week, was completely off pain medicine. She continued to use the walker for a period “mostly for weakness in my legs, as I was severely debilitated from having sat on the couch 90% of the time since January.”

Her salvation from pain and her freedom of mobility was also mind-boggling for her family. “My daughter and husband kept saying: ‘Mom’s back!’ That’s what they kept saying: ‘Mom’s back!”

Her pet dog was shocked, too.

“When I was confined to the couch, I bought a puppy as a companion,” Kimberly says. “I trained her to use a pee-pad because I couldn’t endure the pain of walking to the door to let her out. With my pain gone, my little Yorkie was shocked. After all those months I could walk and take him outside.”

Also delighted were her horses who had missed her for months. She gathered her grooming tools and visited her longtime equine friends, letting them know she was still alive. “My horses were shocked to see me. It had probably been a year.”

Looking back, Kimberly is grateful to have been delivered from “Pardon my French, but the hell of enduring 10+ pain for nearly a year.”

She is especially thankful when she thinks of what might have been.

“I am walking with no assistive device, and without pain,” Kimberly says. “I can walk a mile or two if I choose. I’m back to cleaning my house, doing my wash, taking care of my animals, taking them for walks, doing all the things that I truly thought I had lost forever. And I’m only 57 and I’m a young 57 and I know that without this procedure, I would still be sitting in that wheelchair, still sitting on that couch, and just getting more and more debilitated by the day.”

[1] https://www.pennmedicine.org/for-health-care-professionals/for-physicians/physician-education-and-resources/physician-interviews/2023/december/fragility-fracture-of-the-pelvis-with-drs-donegan-and-mehta