Imagine living with relentless pain for nearly 20 years — pain that no surgery could fix, and that some doctors dismissed as imaginary.
That was Keith Meldrum’s reality. By the time he arrived at St. Paul’s Hospital, he was in his early 30s and out of options. This was his last hope to find relief and reclaim his life.
Keith is blunt about his near-fatal car accident that started his journey with chronic pain. “I was just a young, dumb 16-year-old who found out the hard way that if you drink a bunch of alcohol and don’t get any sleep, you will roll your car down a bank,” he says.
His accident occurred in 1986, at a time when persistent pain was terribly misunderstood. He was left with chronic abdominal wall pain after the accident and the numerous surgeries that followed. Keith got used to doctors brushing him off after hearing his medical history, and every medical intervention he did receive, failed.
In fact, one such failure—a paravertebral nerve block injection that gave him a partial lung collapse—was what finally led him to St. Paul’s Hospital in 2004. During his intake, Keith was understandably doubtful. “I fully expected to be told once again, ‘It’s not that bad, it’s all in your head’,” he recalls.
Instead, intake doctor David Hunt said, “It’s OK, we believe you.”
Two decades later, Keith still remembers the impact of Dr. Hunt’s words. “It was truly a defining, pivotal change,” he says.
Turning pain into progress: How specialists at St. Paul’s Hospital are helping patients
One in five Canadians live with chronic pain. For Dr. Vishal Varshney and Dr. May Ong, who spearhead St. Paul’s Hospital’s two pain programs, it’s obvious why pain research, treatment, and care should be a priority for all of us.
“If it’s not impacting you directly, it’s inevitably affecting someone that you know,” says Dr. Varshney.
Dr. Varshney is an anesthesiologist and the inaugural Chair in Pain Management at St. Paul’s Hospital—he’s the first in BC to hold this position. He leads a team of experts in the Complex and Interventional Pain Program, which offers advanced interventional pain management therapies and research for the treatment of complex pain.
While chronic pain is extremely common, it’s an ‘invisible’ problem. “Pain isn’t something that you can see on a blood test, or even on an MRI,” Dr. Varshney explains.
Many patients living with chronic pain bounce from provider to provider without receiving effective treatment—or worse, without being listened to.
Keith’s path to relief: Personal care that made all the difference
Keith was a candidate for neuromodulation, a field in which St. Paul's Hospital is one of the leaders in nationally. In 2005, he was given his first spinal cord stimulator (an implanted device that delivers mild electrical signals into the spinal cord to reduce pain). The pain didn’t disappear completely, but the implant provided effective relief and allowed Keith to channel his energy into other strategies for self-management.
Breathing techniques helped with breakthrough pain, regular exercise built strength, and his mental health improved exponentially. He remembers a follow-up visit in 2005: “My wife broke down in tears in that room, thanking them, because it had that much of a profound effect not only on me, but on my family.”
When his spinal cord stimulator reached the end of its life in 2015, Keith returned to St. Paul’s Hospital and in 2021, became one of the first in Canada to receive a dorsal root ganglion stimulator. It’s a specialized device placed on the spine that interrupts pain signals before they reach the brain.
Currently under the care of Dr. Varshney, Keith travels from Kelowna to St. Paul’s Hospital every four to six months for a ‘tune up’ of his device. He describes his care as consistently patient centered, collaborative, responsive, and caring.
“I have never been treated with such care, concern, and empathy.”
- Keith Meldrum
Keith remembers a time when they were discussing his care plan, and he felt they needed to take a more assertive approach.
“I know my body. I said, ‘I don't really think that's right. I think we need to go that next step further and just kind of go all in’. And what Dr. Varshney said was, ‘Absolutely, you know your body better than anybody else, then that's what we're going to do’,” Keith recalls. “That's part of his personal commitment to people. As a patient, you're often spoken to, you're not spoken with. So to be able to have a conversation and have that be meaningful is empowering.”
This commitment to personalized, compassionate care is what drives staff like Dr. Varshney to listen with intention, redefine what care can be, and help patients heal better.
“Pain is a very personal experience for people. One of the things that I always ask all my patients is, what are you not able to do now that you would like to be able to do? And what are your goals overall?” Dr. Varshney says. “Because our goal is to be able to get people back to being able to do the things that they want to do and find joy in doing. And that vision overall is what guides a lot of the treatments and therapies that we want to be able to offer.”
How Keith's care sparked a passion for chronic pain advocacy
Inspired by the care he received at St. Paul’s Hospital, Keith started doing advocacy work soon after receiving his first stimulator. Today, he’s lectured at universities, co-authored papers, and given countless others invaluable support and resources for managing their pain. He shares his story of combining medical intervention with psychological and physiological lifestyle changes for significant results.
“Keith educates patients about using a variety of different resources— it’s not just going to be one pill or one injection that will address this, it really needs to be addressed from all different angles,” says Dr. Varshney. It’s exactly the kind of holistic, interdisciplinary care that the team at the Complex and Interventional Pain Program champions.
Keith is also an enthusiastic proponent of pain research: he trusts the work, just as his physicians at St. Paul’s Hospital trusted in him. “I have never been treated with such care, concern, and empathy,” he says.
That kind of care doesn’t happen by accident. It’s made possible by a community of supporters who believe in compassionate, innovative care.
Monthly giving to St. Paul’s Foundation provides steady, reliable support that allows Providence to plan ahead, hire specialized staff, and invest in critical equipment. It’s easy, impactful, and ensures that care teams have what they need to support patients — today and into the future.