No, this isn't a diary from a 60's Batman set.
Let's try something else . . .
"Tuesday, April 12, 2011
A day that will live in infamy!"
Well, for me it is. Not so likely for you - so I'll grant, that may be just a wee teeny bit over the top. But that is the day that everything in my life changed, all my plans changed, and destroyed my hope.
Seriously, all that happened . . . from what most people thought was a little bump.
KosAbility is a community diary series posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
But before I can really talk about Tuesday, April 12, 2011, I need to go back to September 2010 so you can understand, at least the loss of hope part.
That September was when we waved goodbye to our 3 child. Off to college and out of the house, leaving only the baby, who was now 14 and not used to being without any siblings. He is also the mischievous one. Full of energy and play, he would bait his older sibs to a wrestling match, or a chase from the time he learned how to walk.
So here he was now all alone in a big house, and as fall rolled into winter, and in need of release. For my part I was busy with three things, coordinating my high school class' 30th reunion, losing weight AND de-stuffing our house.
I was on such a mission that I barely looked up. When the first of November came my husband implored me to come with them to Carnage Gaming Convention, held every year, the first weekend in November at Lake Morey Resort in Vermont. Normally I go to gaming conventions without a push, I enjoy them, but I was on a mission . . . from God . . . I just needed a black tie.
The first night we were there however, we didn't play any board or card games. My husband and son were wrestling on one of the beds in our room.
The next month it was my turn to wrestle. My son baited me, taking my $1 bill and not giving it back. But in the middle of wrestling something happened and I dislocated my left knee cap. I was in pain, couldn't walk, and would three weeks later find myself in physical therapy.
But HEY it was MY dollar! (and yes, it was rather embarrassing telling everyone, including our doctor what happened).
At physical therapy we set my goals, and to be able to dance at my high school reunion was one of them. So I worked very hard, doing all the exercises, busting it out on the stationary recumbent bicycle (I LOVE stationary recumb bikes). I was even getting back to the gym, and consistent weight loss was commencing again! I was walking. I WAS DANCING!
On Monday, April 11, 2011 I was told that I had come so far physical therapy was going to discharge me after 2 more visits. YAY!
On Tuesday, April 12, 2011, I had just dropped a few invitations to the high school reunion off at the post office. I then proceeded to pick my son up from school. The street I was on is normally busy at 3pm. It was one of the few options people have to get over (or under) the commuter, standard Amtrak, Acela and cargo rail tracks.
I had come to the perpendicular ("T") intersection and was waiting my turn to make a right turn. I was soon second in line. An 18 wheeler was turning left from the street I was turning onto, to my street. I turned instinctively to watch it and make sure it "made it" (and didn't clip my car). As he finished his turn, the car infront of me made his right hand turn, and I began to creep up, but still hadn't turned my back all the way straight from the left hand twist I had made to watch the truck. Then BAM!
At first I didn't know what happened. I took a moment for my mind to process and come to the conclusion that I had been hit. The pain however, was immediate. Still in the daze I put the car in park and pulled the emergency brake (a tribute to Mr. Robert Stransky, my drivers ed teacher when I was 16). At that moment as tears were running down my face from the pain a voice in my head said "Look straight forward, don't move."
I followed that advice and waited for the ambulance. We were only, at most, 15 blocks from the fire station. People were honking, In my rear view I saw the woman in the car behind me (the car that hit me) wave me to pull over, but I couldn't. Cars honked, but I didn't hear sirens, and I couldn't understand why.
Finally the woman who had hit me came up to my window and asked if I was alright and if I could move my car. I didn't turn to look at her, the tears rolling down my cheeks indicated my distress, and I said no, I was hurt. I also noticed from her voice that she was elderly (it turns out she's a couple of months older than my Mom), and I thought, probably didn't have a cell phone.
Without turning my body or my head I went fishing on the seat beside me for my purse and my cell phone. Finding them I call to report the accident, and then my husband. I was in so much pain I was almost incomprehensible to him. . . Then I heard the sirens.
After putting a neck brace on me the firemen extracted me from my car, putting me on a back board and then took me to the hospital. Let me tell you, you probably don't totally appreciate the results of budget cuts until you are traveling by ambulance to the hospital in a neck brace and on a back board. OMFG! Every pot hole, every wash out, every wash board pavement is amplified through the back board you are strapped to. In the midst of the ride I groaned in pain and I think at one point I shouted, "raise my gawd damn taxes already!"
Once at the hospital I was rolled and checked, x-rayed, and in finding no broken bones I was removed from the neck brace and the back board. I can't tell you too much of what went on there, I was still really dazed. In fact I know I told the police officer who was telling me where my car was, gave me my keys, etc, that I wasn't going to remember a thing he told me. I was given pain medication and sent home with instructions to see my doctor.
The next day we went to get my car, a 2006 Honda Accord, and we saw why no one had called the police. The only visible damage to my car was scratches on the bumper. No one thought I could be injured inside, not with a car so new. One designed to take the energy of a crash instead of transferring it to the occupant(s). However, all the energy was transferred to me. Whether it is where she hit me, or how I was sitting, or a combination of that and possibly other things, we may never know.
I then began two weeks of diagnostics. My ears were still ringing days after the accident, I was sent to an audiologist. My back really hurt, so I was sent back to x-ray, then to ultrasound (the results of which sent me for other tests totally unrelated to the accident, which in the end turned out negative AND the fodder for another Kosability diary). I was also sent back to physical therapy.
Was I going to let this set back slow me down? HELL NO! Well, okay, while waiting for first responders I knew that I had been handed a major set back. But I was not going to give in, I was going to fight them on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets . . . . I will never surrender!
Okay, yes, delusions of grandeur, but an accurate representation of how I felt. I had a reunion 3 months away, I was down, but not out. And damnit, I was going to dance! (even if all I could do was a stiff Electric Slide)
A month in, after three weeks of physical therapy, and not getting any better, I was sent to an orthopedist, and he ordered an MRI. I have claustrophobia, but had done enough work on myself I thought I could handle it, closed tunnel and all.
My husband at that point was visiting his family (tickets bought prior to accident). He's had MRIs before and we talked about it through phone calls and email. I was confident. I was confident walking into the building. I made sure the technician knew I was claustrophobic. I was confident when I walked into the room. I was confident when I laid on the sliding table. I was confident as I closed my eyes and she began the "test" run to see if I could handle it. I was confident until the tunnel sides hit my arms, I opened my eyes, and dissolved into a puddle - she couldn't get me out of there fast enough.
I sat on the table shaking, crying and apologizing. I thought I had done enough work on myself to handle the close space, and in other circumstances I have been able to self talk myself calm. But not here, not with this. I am right now feeling anxiety just relating this to you.
The technician began to calm me, shaking off my apologies. What did I have to be sorry for? And told me there was another option, an open MRI. We made the appointment, and I went home and began googling "open MRI," and looking at the pictures.. I knew I could do the one I called the "hamburger press."
The day came, and nervously I walked into the room. A huge smile filled my face as I looked at the Hitachi Oasis. It was the "hamburger press" and I said to myself "I can do this!"
I heard the results first from my physical therapist. I had two bulging discs in my lower back and one in my neck (sorry I can't tell you which ones). The orthopedist said that there was nothing operable, that it was just a matter of physical therapy. Water therapy was added to my "land therapy" and physical therapy became an occupation.
Land physical therapy Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Some of my land therapy included traction. Here I am in neck traction:
The"Rack" as I called it. Back traction machine. The upper and lower plates separate using air pressure."
Water physical therapy was Tuesday and Thursdays. Water therapy turned out to be one of the greatest things for me.
When I first got into the pool I was told just to walk from the 3 feet to just before the pool dropped off to the deep end. I did that twice and declared it too boring to continue. I asked if I could swim and while the response was an affirmative the attitude was sort of "swim, yeah right." Except I have been swimming since I was a little tyke, having an unheated pool in my backyard that I would swim in even when most people (especially my parents) thought it too cold out.
One length of the back stroke and a return length of the crawl and I was left alone with the direction, "just don't over do it."
I also could not walk our grocery stores. I needed an electrical cart.
I need to back up here a minute and acknowledge one other therapy that I have been getting from the point my physical therapists thought I could handle any touch on my back.
From the very first moment of the accident just the act of touching anywhere on my back hurt. When I would be asked in medical interviews "what position feels better?" My answer would be "None of them. It's just a matter of how long I can take sitting before I need to lie down. And how long I can stand laying down before I have to stand, for a few seconds. . . "
Since the time of my knee injury I have been getting foot messages to relieve the near constant pain in my feet (talked about in this diary). I wanted my massage therapist to begin working on my back to, but we had to wait until it would be thought beneficial and not something just to set me off further. She started working on my back in June.
So by the time July rolls around I have physical therapy 5 times a week, massage therapy twice a month
A pain management doctor had been suggested to me weeks after the accident, but I resisted at that point because that said to me "long term." And I refused to believe that this was going to be long term. Now however, just weeks before my class reunion, I relented. I was also told by my doctors that no one would release me to fly to the reunion. (the internet allowed me to be the reunion coordinator from 2,000 miles away)
Disappointed and broken hearted I hand my duties to someone else on the committee and let everyone know.
My family practioner thought that some of my unrelenting pain was due to the accident "turning my fibromyalgia pain on." The pain management doctor concurred and put me on a gulten free diet, but she also felt that I was becoming dependant on Vicodin, even though she felt that it wasn't really helping because of my fibro. So she refused to give me more Vicodin and my family practioner followed suit.
Now I had always said to everyone, I will do what ever you ask of me just make sure I can sleep at night. I was only taking Vicodin, if I needed it, after I was done driving for the day and to kill the pain enough so I could sleep at night. Without the Vicodin killing the pain, I could not sleep. Without sleep my fibro would hurt worse, and combined with my back pain that was not caused by fibro, I couldn't sleep. A wonderful vicious cycle.
Though physical therapy noticed my condition deteriorating, and that I told them that I was in too much pain, no one understood how much until I simply started refusing to go to any physical therapy at all. I couldn't, I had no energy and I was in so much pain .. and this was my August.
Now with my summer ruined and in tons of pain, I just sat. My civil disobedience. My doctors relented. In September they prescribed the Vicodin but said from there on I would need to prove I wasn't abusing it. No problem I thought (and though almost empty I still am on that ONE bottle).
I got the sleep I needed and rebounded immediately. But I still had lost a lot in that month and we needed to recover ground.
Slowly the gluten free diet also began abatting some of the pain, but not all. So I started the test treatments to see if nerve blocks would help. The tests worked and in November/December I got the real things. 3 on one side of my back 3 on the other. Excruciating to get but they for the most part worked. Except, by general consenses the lowest right one failed within 4 weeks.
I also began in November/December I also began seeing a Chiropractor. Now this was big for me, because I had been raised to believe that they are quacks. But pain causes you to look at things you wouldn't normally (and MA isn't a medical marijuana state).
I was straight with him, I was still having lots of pain. (it's actually a testament to how much pain I have been in and am in that even though I can feel a diminishment of pain, it is not gone). I also had had an increase in migraines since the accident. Something that until that point I had never mentioned, it had never occurred to me. I never made the connection.
Within weeks of seeing him a great deal of the migraines ended and I could finally do something I hadn't been able to do since this whole thing began . . . clip my toenails.
Do you know how demoralizing it is to have to ask your spouse and kids to clip your toenails, knowing how people feel about that? I was handed off and handed around more times than I care to think about.
But while some more pain was gone, AND the nerve blocks kicked in. which ended more pain It wasn't enough. I was given a T.E.Ns machine.
What is a TENS machine? its' the Zap!
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is electrostimulation. Which is something I have been getting a physical therapy after every session. I also get it at the Chiropractor, and now I give it to myself.
In March I was discharged from physical therapy. I still see the Chiropractor once a month and I see my massage therapist once a week (and yes I have a lawyer, because medical and auto insurance gave out a little while ago). I will also probably need to see my pain management doctor next September as that's how long nerve blocks are supposed to last.
But for right now, I can walk a grocery store without the need of an electric cart, have started going back to the gym, and I can walk maybe 10 blocks in Boston and back again.
However I am not out of pain and may never be (though my massage therapist is hopeful).
This is my last KosAbility diary until at least August, it may be my last diary until then too. My daughter is getting married and I'm full scale into getting the wedding done and trying to get my house done (for the in-laws who may come to visit after the wedding which is in Denver). I have to take frequent breaks due to my back, and some days are a complete "no go." But my biggest worry is flying.
I'm already uncomfortable on airplanes, and didn't lose the weight I had wanted to. So I am asking my doctor for a new bottle of Vicodin, so I can handle the plane ride. I don't think I want to attempt a TENS machine in flight.
I will also be at NN12 (I fly out the week after) .. even if I have to take my cane and my TENS machine with me!
~ finis ~
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