ABSTRACT
THE CASE Three years ago our daughter Nicky fell off her horse during a show jumping competition and broke her back. If I close my eyes I can still see her fall in slow motion. There’s a lot I could tell about all the things that happened afterwards, but the most important thing is that Nicky recovered almost completely. You can’t imagine how relieved we were. She underwent spinal surgery to repair the broken vertebrae and stabilise the spine. After a period of rehabilitation, Nicky went back to university on time for the start of the new term. Unfortunately the pain in her back never completely disappeared and her study results declined somewhat in her second year. We returned to the trauma surgeon with her complaints, but he could find no specific cause for the pain. He saw nothing unexpected or abnormal on the X-ray of her spine. The neurologist could not find any cause for her complaints either, even after a thorough physical examination. Nicky kept her cool and concluded she would just have to learn to live with this pain. She was grateful she wasn’t stuck in a wheelchair. Her resilience has always been so unbelievably impressive.
