DEAN Randall rises early each day to get his daughters Dakota, Melina and Nikita, ages nine, seven and five, their breakfast, dressed and ready for school.
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He delivers them to Bundarra Central, just two streets away, washes up and turns his attention to his wife, Teagen Mitchell.
These days, he routinely helps her rise, shower, and navigate each day that has left Teagen’s 28-year-old face and body exhausted by pain.
It has been seven months since Teagan first felt the shooting pains she originally chalked up to chasing around three little girls. "Straight up the bone,” Teagen said wearily.
‘Am I going to have to die before they give me something?’ is my response, because it’s starting to feel like that.
- Teagen Mitchell
“Sometimes it feels like it’s on fire inside my bones. It’s ridiculous. I’d prefer to go through labor a thousand times than to put up with this.”
Since then, scans and tests they can afford on Medicare indicate she could have a number of medical disorders, but Teagen has not received a definitive diagnosis.
“I wish somebody could just tell me what’s going on, so I can properly get it treated,” she said. “I have been told for the majority of bone issues, there is no cure. We have been told that by several different specialists, but they can slow it down and manage the pain properly if they know what’s causing it.”
The early discomfort escalated to the point she and Dean presented at John Hunter Hospital during a visit to Newcastle, because Teagen was in excruciating pain.
Bone scans since indicate inflammation at the end of her long bones, and Teagen said the condition is spreading.
They have now seen five specialists, including a purported Tamworth pain specialist who did nothing but continue Teagen on the opiates she would prefer not to use to manage her undiagnosed condition.
“‘Am I going to have to die before they give me something?’ is my response, because it’s starting to feel like that,” Teagen asked bluntly.
Dean said between caring for the girls and Teagen, housework, homework, cooking and shopping, he invests his time in researching every possibility to help his wife climb out from her pain. “I wish I could take her pain away,” he said.
Teagen will have tests in Armidale to determine if she has acidosis as all signs indicate, and in mid-July, the family will travel back to Newcastle to see a John Hunter rheumatologist.
The family has set up a page to help ease their rising medical costs: www.gofundme.com/2269kysk.
