Auckland dental receptionist Rebecca Gilbert suffered excruciating daily back pain for five years before she was given a scan that showed a tumour on her spine.
Despite being told surgery might leave her paralysed, the 37-year-old bravely went ahead with an operation, where the tumour was successfully removed and declared non-cancerous. But a week later, Rebecca experienced a medical nightmare that left her on the brink of death.
“When I first started getting back pain, I figured it was part of my job as a dental assistant, which I did for 12 years before I got sick, because you’re always leaning to the side,” says Rebecca, who was swimming, walking and doing F45 fitness at the time. “My GP said I just needed to exercise and take pain relief more often.
Sitting pretty with pooch Lucy. “I’m starting to work out again.”
“In June 2021, the pain got so bad, it was consuming me. I changed to my partner Andrew’s GP and was booked in for a scan two weeks later. They had to sedate me so I could lie flat without being
in pain.”
Finding out a tumour was responsible for her pain was a relief for Rebecca, but it wasn’t what she’d been expecting!
She instantly thought about cancer and was told specialists wouldn’t know until they’d tested the tumour.
Rebecca’s support crew (from left) husband Andrew, and parents Mandy and Nigel.
“I was given the pros and cons of having surgery to remove it, but was told I’d be in a wheelchair by my mid-fifties if I didn’t, so I had no choice really,” recalls Rebecca, who was in surgery for 11 hours. “I was absolutely petrified knowing I was going in and might come out not being able to walk if it went wrong. But my family and partner told me it’d be OK and it’d be the end to my pain.”
Luckily, the surgeons successfully removed 90% of the tumour, but told Rebecca they’d left behind small lesions that were too risky to touch. They’d be treated using radiation therapy. It was a sign of relief for the first-time patient, who lay in Auckland Hospital for a week not allowed to move.
But during the enforced bed rest, Rebecca’s left leg started to swell. No one suspected it was due to blood clots, which dispersed and made their way into her lungs the following day when she got up to walk around.
“Mum was with me and all of a sudden on the way to the bathroom, I cried out her name. She turned around and saw I’d fallen onto the ground.
“I had a heart attack caused by a blood clot,” shares Rebecca, whose parents Nigel, 64, and Mandy, 62, were by her bedside as much as possible. “Mum screamed and it just so happened the lady next to me in the ward was with her dad, who was a doctor, so he started doing CPR on me. Then the doctors came in and took my mum away because she was freaking out.”
Rebecca was “gone” for over five minutes while doctors did prolonged CPR and finally got her back. But then they noticed her stomach was growing bigger and bigger. It turned out she had internal bleeding caused by her ribs being broken during resuscitation, which lacerated Rebecca’s liver.
An emergency incision was made from underneath her breasts and down to her pubic bone, and as she bled out, Rebecca was given two full- body blood infusions. Then she was put in an induced coma and her terrified family was told she probably wouldn’t make it through the night.
“When my parents came back the next day, they were told I was still alive, but I was very sick and doctors would take each challenge as it came,” shares Rebecca, who also got pneumonia while she was in intensive care. “My kidneys shut down and I had to go on dialysis, while I was already being kept alive by big machines. After a week, my parents were told I could start coming out of the induced coma to see how I’d respond.”
But Rebecca’s body still wasn’t strong enough and doctors decided to leave her on life support a while longer, before trying again a week later. They put a tube in her neck to help with breathing, since she was no longer tolerating a tube down her throat.
“That was a lot better, but I couldn’t talk or eat or anything, so any food was given to me up my nose through a tube,” she explains. “I was in that coma for a month and a half, so when I woke, I couldn’t walk or grip my hands together, but I could move my head.”
In a coma for a month and a half, Mum and Dad hoped for a miracle.
Eventually, Rebecca moved to Middlemore Hospital to start rehab to build her muscles up again, but the once-independent young woman struggled having to use a walker and wheelchair.
“All the nurses have said to me I’m definitely a one in a million and that they’ve never seen a patient have so many complications!” she laughs. “I’ve been approached to be in a study about what happened to me, so they can use my story as a learning experience in case it happens to someone else.”
After more than three months in hospital, Rebecca finally went home in October 2021 and within two weeks, in her own environment, she was walking without aides. She has since healed well and although she still gets some niggling back pain, she’s in good health. Five weeks of radiation therapy also got rid of the remaining lesions in her spine.
Back on her feet after suffering from potentially fatal blood clots in her legs.
“I’m starting to work out again and it’s amazing to be living without that back pain,” says Rebecca, who admits she wouldn’t have got through her traumatic ordeal without her supportive electrician partner, 42, and her parents.
“Now I have fertility things to battle, since the radiation treatment caused early-stage ovarian failure, and Andrew and I don’t have kids.”
Keen to start a family, Rebecca tells, “Now I have fertility things to battle.”
But recently, when she was feeling down about her surgery scar, Rebecca’s mum reminded her that it means she has survived far more than most people.
“She’s right and I’m proud when I look at my warrior scar,” she says. “I know I’m blessed to still be here.”
