Bernadette Peters
For years, Feilding mum of six Karolyn Carroll lived a life dictated by hip and back pain so severe, she relied on copious amounts of opioids and needed a wheelchair to leave the house. That was until December last year when, desperate for relief and after being declined for surgical intervention in New Zealand, she travelled to India for a robotic-assisted spinal fusion and decompression operation.
In Wellington, she was told a spinal fusion would cost $85,000, involve cutting through her abdominal and back muscles, and require a lengthy recovery period.
In India, the surgery cost just $13,000 and remarkably, just 48 hours after the operation, Karolyn was walking the hospital hallways and even climbing stairs, something she hadn’t done in more than 18 months.
A life transformed after surgery
With her pain drastically reduced, she flew home just six days after surgery, astounding her family on New Year’s Day by walking through the door.
“My son did a double take,” Karolyn recalls.
“He said, ‘Mum, what are you doing? Sit down.’ And I just replied, ‘No, I can walk!’”
It’s a moment she’ll never forget. Before the surgery, Karolyn was taking up to 40 painkillers a day, including high doses of morphine just to take the edge off.
She explains, “I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t work and I couldn’t care for my animals or my son the way I wanted to. I had no independence. I was isolated and in constant agony.”
Family support through the struggle
Karolyn, 43, home schools her 12-year-old son Lucas on the family’s 10-hectare property, which is also home to a menagerie of animals, including donkeys, peacocks, turtles, dogs and swans. Her older children, Josh, 28, Chloe, 26, Elyssa, 25, Ashlee, 21, and Sophie, 20, live independently, but alongside husband Andrew, 44, have been an enormous support.
“They’re all that’s kept me going,” she admits.
The life-changing saga started in 2012 after a fall while pregnant caused initial hip pain.
“Doctors told me to lose weight and the pain would go away,” she says.
“I lost the weight, but the pain stayed.”
A setback after surgery
In 2021, she finally underwent a microfracture repair surgery on her hip. For 18 months afterwards, things were significantly better, until Karolyn tore her hip capsule, which she says meant her back was over-compensating and more vulnerable to injury.
One month later, while lifting a heavy bag of animal feed, she felt her back go “crunch”.
She says, “I was in agonising pain from that moment on.”
Scans later revealed no cartilage between two vertebrae, resulting in bone-on-bone grinding. She also had pars fractures and vertebrae slippage. Despite a second hip surgery, her back pain only worsened.
“I had no quality of life – it was a dark tunnel and getting darker,” she tells.
When conventional options fail
When ACC declined to cover surgery, Karolyn and Andrew explored using their KiwiSaver to pay for an $85,000 private spinal fusion. But after consultation, Karolyn says the surgeon said he didn’t believe it would help.
“We were begging for help,” she says.
“I didn’t know what to do.”
Desperate for a solution, Karolyn found medical tourism company Indicure, and Mumbai brain and spine surgeon Dr Mazda Turel.
“He was kind and empathetic, and told me, ‘This surgery will work. It will reduce your pain to manageable levels, if not eliminate it.’ I believed him.”
A Journey to India for surgery
Two weeks later, she arrived in India. After a thorough assessment at the hospital to confirm her conditions, Karolyn underwent surgery using robotic-assisted and minimally invasive techniques.
“The next day, they helped me stand and I thought, ‘This is weird –there’s no pain.’”
The operation involved inserting four long screws to stabilise her vertebrae. A titanium cage, filled with loose bone fragments, was also placed between the vertebrae, lacking cushioning. The slipped vertebrae was repositioned, and multiple nerves were decompressed. Six days later, Karolyn was on a flight home.
Life-changing results
While she’ll always need to be mindful of her back, it has been life-changing, with Karolyn now attending regular gym sessions through Sport Manawatu’s Green Prescription team. She also line dances twice a week.
“I still have a little way to go, but I can see the light and it’s shining bright.”
Karolyn has completed a nail technician course and now runs a small business from home.
“After what I’ve been through, I know I can do hard things,” she smiles. “I’m not letting my trauma or injury define who I am.”
More than anything, Karolyn hopes her story will help others.
“I’ve already spoken to three people living in pain about my surgery and, to me, that’s everything because now there’s three more people who have a chance to be pain-free.”
