Nine Months- An Update

Nine months ago today Daniel called an ambulance because he thought I was having a heart attack.  Nine months ago I went from writing a healthy-living blog to writing up-dates about an illness that no one has yet been able to put a name to.  Nine months ago today was the last time that I woke up in the morning feeling no pain.

A lot can happen in nine months.  In nine months babies can be born.  Nine months is the typical length of a school year.  In my case, though, nine months is just another marker of time that has been spent with little improvements that are getting me nowhere.

Okay, it can be said that I am being dramatic and not looking at the positive side, and in some ways that is true.  In other ways this is me being honest.  Honest with you, and most importantly honest with myself.  The truth of the matter is that I am angry about where I am today.

In April, when I left the hospital after four days of the doctors being baffled about what was going on with me, I expected that I would eventually find out what caused me to wind up in the hospital.  To this point no one knows, and it won't be explored any further because I've given up on those doctors.  More accurately those doctors have given up on me.  The M.D. who sent me to the hospital in the first place as decided the pain is all in my head.  He admitted that complications with shingles should not have caused the pain that I've been left with.  He thinks there are two different issues happening.  So I was never hospitalized due to the shingles as far as he is concerned.  Hmmmm.....

The first neurologist I was seeing assumed my leg pain was caused by shingles and treated me for neuropathy that is common with shingles patients.  Unfortunately he didn't understand that I didn't have a lack of feeling in my feet and legs.  I had something that was tightening my muscles to a point where I was forced to walk like a duck.  He treated me with medication for nerve damage, and though I do have some nerve issues we have since discovered that it is my muscles that seem to be the main culprit.  The medication he put me on almost killed me, and I learned my lesson about speaking out LOUD and CLEAR when I feel something is not right with a diagnosis or medication.

There is one thing that first neurologist said that is weighing very heavily on my heart, and I think this is where most of my negativity is coming from right now.  He said that if I wasn't better by December he would begin to consider this to be a permanent injury.  Now, this comment should have been thrown out the window with the other garbage that came out of his mouth, but I can't seem to shake it.  At this point he would have taken me off the Lyrica anyway and began to treat me for learning to live with my condition "as-is."  Well, here we are.  I'm a few weeks ahead of what his schedule was.  When I started seeing my chiropractor as my main doctor for this a few weeks ago I accepted the fact that I will never again be able to do high-impact activities.  We are working on finding what I CAN do and WHEN I can handle it.

I have been seeing the chiropractor weekly and the massage therapist every two weeks.  The massage therapist described my improvement as "minimal" when I saw her on Wednesday.  We decided to try to go for only a week and a half between visits and see if that makes a difference.  She said that right now my muscles are growing too tight between visits and it's like starting all over again each time she sees me.  What she doesn't know is that my muscles are that tight again within days.  I can't afford to see her more than once a week.  We'll see how this new schedule works, then I'll figure out where I am going from there.

The good news is that I am getting some relief from this combination of massage and chiropractic adjustments.  It's just not what I had wanted for myself as we head into the new year.  To be honest, though, I had told myself if I could teach I would be happy.  I'm teaching, so I need to look at that aspect!  Before seeing the chiropractor and massage therapist I was coming home and falling right into bed.  With their care I am able to stay up and involved until the girls go to bed.  These are improvements, I know this.  They're just not coming fast enough for me.  I'm really a very impatient person!