Regina woman’s knee surgery put on hold due to new health concern

Pam Soveran’s body is deteriorating.

The retired chef said she’s been waiting more than two years for a surgery to replace her right knee. She was able to have her left knee done, but is stuck living in constant pain while waiting for the second procedure.

Now, Soveran said, she’s been dropped to the bottom of that waiting list because her left hip now also needs to be replaced.

“The last three or four months have just flipped everything upside down,” Soveran said. “I can’t even walk to the end of the hallway now, hardly.”

Just a few months ago, Soveran — who is normally very active — was walking and riding her bike around Regina. She said her doctor was shocked at how quickly the deterioration happened.

When she visited a specialist at the end of October for a cortisone shot to treat the bursitis she has in both hips, she got the unfortunate news that she was in desperate need of a new hip in addition to the knee replacement.

“I was in so much pain then that he decided to do another set of X-rays,” Soveran explained. “Now, I go to the bottom of the list again for the knee replacement.”

While she’s been put on the urgent list to receive a hip replacement on her left side, she said she’s hoping it will only be a few months before she can have that surgery.

“The pain is so bad I wanted to check out at times,” she said. “I can’t hardly leave my house anymore, because I can’t walk.”

Soveran said the pain in her hip is affecting both her knee and groin. She said her entire left side is in constant, extreme pain.

She won’t take pain medication, for fear it might have adverse effects when mixed with other medication she takes. While she’s living with pain, Sovran said she sometimes considers it a blessing because it has moved her higher on the list for the hip replacement.

The only person around to help Soveran get through her extreme day-to-day pain is her nine-year-old grandson Chris. He has special needs, Soveran said, but does as much as he can to help her out.

Without him, Soveran said she’d have already given up, as it’s impossible for her to live any sort of normal life in her current condition.

“That’s what keeps me hanging on,” she said. “I have Chris. He has no one else. He just has me.”

The grandmother said her health issues show how people are suffering, often spending years living with debilitating problems that continue to worsen without proper care.

If the province has been getting caught up on its lengthy surgical backlog, Soveran said she hasn’t noticed.

Soveran said it’s frustrating and upsetting to have lived her life as an active, healthy person in the hope that doing so would help keep her healthy and active well into her retirement. Now, she said, she’s living in pain and just waiting for the phone to ring.