Kamloops resident Deena Beauchamp poses with her husband Jamie Beauchamp in 2024.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Deena Beauchamp

Just a few months ago Deena Beauchamp was thriving. The Kamloops woman had a job, volunteered in the community and enjoyed long walks with her dog.

Today, she's almost immobilized and living with chronic pain. She sleeps in a special chair, depends on her husband to lift her out of it and uses a walker to shuffle around. Despite numerous medical tests, visits with doctors and a variety of prescribed drugs, her condition is a mystery.

“They don’t know what I have and the pain and tightness in my body is getting worse every day,” Beauchamp said. “Now it’s in my wrists and hands, I can’t open anything. What do I do?”

The trouble began in the beginning of January with pain and stiffness in her right foot that spread through her body. She quit her job as a senior care companion and her volunteer work visiting care homes and hospital wards with her St. John Ambulance dog.

Getting to see specialists to diagnose her condition has taken months and money, and she said her physical and mental health is rapidly declining in the meantime.

“I started having pain in my right foot and we thought it had to do with the physiotherapy I do for my knee I had replaced a few years ago," Beauchamp said. "I had my foot imaged and was told it was fine but it hurt to put a sock or shoe on it.”

By April, her condition was worse with pain and stiffness in her hips, thighs and buttocks.

“When I was 18, I was in a serious car accident so I’m used to going to treatment and having arthritis in my hips, but then my back was getting sore, my neck was stiff and my arms and legs were tingling. Things were not right,” Beauchamp said.

In May, she needed her husband to help her get off a chair and she struggled to push herself up from the toilet. Unable to endure the pain any longer, she went to the emergency department at Royal Inland Hospital.

“They did my blood work and couldn’t find anything wrong,” she said.

A week later she returned to the emergency department believing she had shingles and was put on antiviral medication. She was given an appointment with urgent care for follow up a couple of weeks down the road.

The shingle rash went away, but she was still in pain. She phoned her doctor in Langley for help who requested she go see him.

“I went to Langley and by this time my arms were not moving, I couldn’t lift them sideways or in front of me, the same with my legs,” Beauchamp said. “He thought it was neurological and sent referrals to Royal Inland for an MRI and a nerve conductive study.”

She returned to Kamloops and went to her appointment with urgent care to follow up on the rash, struggling to get out of the chair and walking with a cane.

“The doctor there said my condition is not from shingles. He said to phone my doctor back, there’s no way I’d get an MRI or conductive nerve studies done in Kamloops anytime soon, the waitlists are way too long," Beauchamp said.

She called her Langley doctor and requested the tests be done in the Lower Mainland to speed things up. Weeks went by without confirmed appointment dates.

She then paid $1,400 privately for an MRI at a back clinic to rule out anything neurological. The MRI showed no neurological defects.

In June, Beauchamp tried several prescribed drugs. Unable to roll over or lift herself out of bed she purchased a medical chair to sleep in.

She has seen different doctors and tried different medications that didn’t work.

“They thought it was something called PMR but no one would diagnose me with it, but I have all the symptoms,” she said. “It if goes undetected for too long it can have serious complications.”

Polymyalgia rheumatica, or PMR, is an inflammatory condition that causes joint and muscle pain and stiffness, mainly in the shoulders and hips.

In July, Beauchamp went to another appointment with urgent care in Kamloops.

“The doctor said the only way to get help is to stop taking medications, get to my worst state and go to the emergency department,” she said. “I stopped my meds and went in two days later and was admitted for four days. I saw two neurologists who were able to do the conductive nerve study and rule out diseases like ALS, muscular dystrophy and lupus."

She was advised to see a rheumatologist. 

“I needed a referral but was in too much pain to wait any longer,” Beauchamp said. “I called a rheumatologist and asked to private pay to talk to them but was declined. With the referral it takes 18 to 24 months to see a rheumatologist in Kamloops.”

In BC, patients wishing to see a rheumatologist must be referred by a general practitioner such as their family physician.

According to the BC Society of Rheumatologists, there are three practising in Kamloops, four in Kelowna, one in Summerland and one in West Kelowna. In the Lower Mainland, more than 70 are listed, and 13 are on Vancouver Island. There is one in Prince George and two in the Kootenays.

She phoned her doctor in Langley who set up an appointment with a rheumatologist in Surrey for October. A friend called around and found a rheumatologist in Vancouver that could see her sooner.

“He spent an hour with me and said he thinks I have a severe case of fibromyalgia with an auto immune disease on top of it,” she said. “But I need to see one of his associates to rule out PMR because it isn’t his specialty.”

It will take months to see that specialist and Beauchamp still hasn’t got a call back with an appointment time.

This week she was put on meds for fibromyalgia.

Beauchamp is also working with a naturopath to rule out Lyme disease. In a few days, she will be travelling again to the Lower Mainland, this time to try a deep tissue Chinese medicine treatment.

“I don’t recognize my own body and I’m getting worse,” she said. “I’m thankful to have a doctor and that my kids are grown because this is costly. I’d hate for someone with a young family to be going through this.

"The medical system is broken.”

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