Posted on 07/18/2002 6:17:47 PM PDT by vannrox
Newscaster sits down - and is paralysed
Ras Adiba Radzi, who injured her spine in a car accident in 1995, hears a crack in her spine as she tries to sit down
KUALA LUMPUR - Popular Malaysian television newscaster Ras Adiba Radzi became paralysed from the waist down after she hurt her spine while trying to sit down at home last week.
Her spine was damaged seven years ago in a road accident and has been propped up with titanium implants.
Doctors told her that she should go for surgery to repair her spine urgently to enable her to walk again.
Speaking from her hospital bed, Ms Ras, 33, said that it started with a sharp pain in her lower back last week.
'Then as I tried to sit down, I heard a crack in my spine and I had to be rushed to hospital,' she recalled at the Pantai Medical Centre here. 'I am now partially paralysed,' she said.
Before the incident on July 11, Ms Ras had been using a wheelchair to move around to ease the pain on her back.
'I cannot sit or stand for long. Even lying in bed is painful and I have to put pillows under my back,' she said.
Ms Ras, who is divorced, injured her spine in a car accident in 1995 while she was on a reporting assignment for private television station TV3.
The accident resulted in her having constant back pain.
'I had to take drugs and steroids to ease the pain and in 1999, my doctors suggested that implants be placed on my spinal cord to rectify the problem,' she added.
It was then that the newscaster, who had been active in sports, especially motor racing, realised the seriousness of the injury and underwent titanium implants.
But last year, the condition of her spine worsened after she was attacked by a group of men outside her mother's house in Cheras here.
She underwent another spinal cord implant operation after the incident.
'It was very painful. I was only given local anaesthesia as I had to be awake throughout the operation. The surgeon needed my input to ensure that the implants were correctly placed,' said Ms Ras of the second operation.
She now needs to go for another operation to treat her spine in Sydney at a cost of RM300,000 (S$138,000).
'It is very critical for me as my doctors said that my nerves are deteriorating day by day,' she said.
'I want to be able to walk again... There is so much I want to do,' she said.
She said she had been undergoing physiotherapy daily at the hospital.
'Specialists here can perform the operation but they advise me to have it done at the place where I have undergone surgery before,' she said. --The Star/AsiaNews Network,New Straits Times
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