>> Who needs another one?
I'll cut these in half.
>> It wasn't that long ago that a simple pleasure like playing
with her dogs would have been impossible for Liz to accomplish.
A back surgery in 1999, done in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, left Liz with chronic pain.
For years, pain ruled her life.
>> Because of the nerve injury it causes pain throughout my left leg, left hip area,
and down my left leg to my foot, and it's a deep aching, burning kind of pain.
There wasn't really any sort of activity I felt like I could do, that over a period of time,
that wasn't going to cause more pain to come back.
>> Liz's doctor prescribed oral pain medication, but she built a tolerance
to medication and there were side effects.
>> I always felt dull, emotionally dull.
The pain was in charge.
I just turned my life over to this pain and felt like nothing is ever going to be the same,
I'm not going to have my life back any more, I won't ever be able to work again.
I won't, I won't, I can't, I can't, and I became suicidal.
[ Knocking on door ]
>> Hey Liz!
>> Liz's life changed when she was referred
to the UW Health Pain Management Clinic and met Doctor Nalini Sehgal
>> I think they must have a mantra
at this office that says, "Patient has pain,
they are believable, and what they're telling us is real."
>> What we strongly believe, all of us that work here, the philosophy is,
'Patient is at the center of the treatment and we provide interdisciplinary care.
Tell me, how is your pain today?
>> About one.
>> We all, as a group, will think and see how in this patients particular case,
what are the treatment options and treatment modalities that should be used and implemented.
>> In Liz's case, Dr. Sehgal recommended a pain pump implanted just below her skin.
The pump delivers pain medication directly to the area on the spine that is causing the pain.
>> The advantage of doing a pump or doing an injection in to the spinal canal,
instead of taking by mouth is, someone who's taking about three hundred milligrams
of morphine by mouth, which is a large dose, huge dose, they may require only a milligram
of morphine to get the same of even better effects with less side effects
if it's given in to the spinal canal directly.
>> Have you hold this.
>> Not everyone is a candidate for a pain pump and it's often times a last resort
for patients suffering from chronic pain.
But in Liz's case, the pump was life changing.
>> The side effects I have?
I can't think of one, and right now I'm sitting in front of you now with no pain whatsoever.
Now that took a long time and it took increases of the medicine as time went on,
but I'm at such a low dose of the morphine, I'm at a much lower dose
than even the lowest dose of the narcotics that I was on.
Come on puppies.
The long and short of it is, I can do lots of work in the garden, taking care of my animals.
The other day we were at the dog park and I walked a fourth of a mile
to a half a mile around, did it twice, with the dogs and no problem what so ever.
>> Liz has had a pain pump for more than a decade.
She stresses it's not a miracle cure and she still has some bad days,
but pain no longer runs her life.
>> The pit of chronic pain, it's dark and it's sad, and it just grabs on to you
and won't let go, and I feel like I clawed my way out of that pit,
and with the help of the pump, and with Doctor Sehgal, once I got to the top I just thought,
"Okay, let's start living life here again."
[ Laughing ]
>> Oh what a sweetie.