SCS

Grateful

THANK YOU Friends & Family! Thank God for some pain relief!

We appreciate so many of you checking in on Christine and asking how her health is. After multiple surgeries, she has her spinal cord stimulator (SCS) implant, and she is making progress. We are so, so, so grateful for life-changing surgeries and treatments we were unable to get in the U.S.

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2 Surgeries in 3 Weeks

• 3 surgical incisions
• Thin wires from her epidural to a stimulator
• 3 weeks with a test stimulator and settings
• Final stimulator implanted in her abdomen
• SCS Remote changes intensity and settings
• Fewer pain meds, more sleep, more alert
• New pain in ankle keeps her mostly in bed
• Continued C. Diff symptoms, can’t take antibiotics
• C. Diff treatment in USA still 2-6 months, too risky

Beloved, bionic Christine persisted patiently through more than 10 visits to Klinikum Memmingen hospital and clinic. Bavarian Germans are very caring and kind. Paperwork and language barriers were overcome. Christine stayed 12 combined nights in the hospital for her 2 surgeries. When she awoke from her 1st surgery with a test stimulator, she cried tears of joy to feel less agony and pain for the first time in what seemed like forever. She then spent 3 weeks logging how she felt with different settings on a test unit. Her 2nd surgery placed her permanent implant in her abdomen, and she is tapering her pain medications with better sleep and more alert during the day. She is still mostly in bed and wheelchair bound, but it is a medical miracle to finally relieve some of her agony across her arms, back, shoulders and neck.

Antibiotics brought back C. Diff symptoms, which in July 2024 caused her heart to stop. This time, we had a scare when her blood pressure dropped to a critical 55/37. Thank God her BP is much better and stable!

Christine has a new nerve pain in her right ankle, and it feels just like the wrist nerve pain from last year that spread to her arms, shoulders and neck. We hope and pray her ankle pain does not spread or get worse. We are seeing multiple doctors for diagnosis and referrals.

We are still with our kind hosts, in a small room above their garage in the town of Lautrach. The only C. Diff treatment that works for Christine remains a 2 to 6 month wait in the United States – too risky for her multiple brushes with death. And when she gets C. Diff symptoms, she gets so sick there’s no guarantee she could fly back here for treatment.

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Next Steps

Our next steps are asking the German immigration office to extend our medical stay. We continue to seek some remedy for her ankle pain. Then we hope to move to where we can gain access to her C. Diff treatment – fecal microbiota transplant (FMT).

Scroll down for an explainer video of how Christine’s SCS works along with photos of her medical journey the last few months. Love to all ♡

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How SCS Works (Video)

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Photos

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C. Diff

Clostridium Difficile (C. Diff) infects 500,000 and kills 30,000 Americans every year.

1 in 5 patients with C. Diff get symptoms again, increasing infection risk.

C. Diff costs Americans > $5 Billion annually in healthcare expenses.

C. Diff is vastly under reported because Medicare financially penalizes reports, hospitals and nursing homes can claim patients were infected before arrival, and it is often diagnosed as IBD.

CDC calls C. Diff an “urgent threat” to public health.

The C. Diff bacteria form resistant spores in the gut. Broad spectrum antibiotics increase C. Diff risk 7 – 10 times. C. Diff causes severe diarrhea and colitis (colon inflammation).

In 2025 the FDA severely restricted FMT – the C.Diff treatment that relieved Christine’s symptoms after going through 6 other treatments.

Learn More

AI Notebook from 50 articles dated 2025-6

CDiff.org Peggy Lillis Foundation

CDC Information Hub