Jarrett Seck is a patient at Regina General Hospital. He is there because a “minor” leg injury he suffered while playing football for the Regina Thunder, progressed into a condition called “Complex Regional Pain Syndrome”, or CRPS. Even the slightest touch is now incredibly painful.
“Any type of stimulus is interpreted as pain. The body’s mechanism for pain and sensory perception is totally altered in this situation,” Dr. J. E. Buwembo, a neurosurgeon at Regina General Hospital, said.
This year, the condition spread to the 22-year-old’s other leg and his left arm (Jarrett is left-handed) leaving him without the use of 3 limbs. He will tell you the pain is the worst thing.
On the McGill pain scale, (a scale ranking pain from 1 to 50), CRPS is at 46, above childbirth and the amputation of a finger, and it never subsides.
“I always have a constant burning, feels like my bones are being crushed, my lungs are being torn, so I’m pretty much bed ridden, Seck said.
“He’s been in the hospital since May.10th. He’s had 3 surgeries in July and August, and that’s kind of where we are at today”, Jarrett’s father Dave Speck said.
The surgeries and treatments that Jarrett has gone through have not seemed to help manage the pain thus far. The family has started a GoFundMe page in hopes of raising $80 thousand dollars to take him to a neurological relief center in The United States, in hopes of reversing the effects.
“I would love to go back to school again, and finish my degree. As well as, I would like to have a family and just have a normal life”, Jarrett said.