There is no man in our home, therefore there is no one to pass off all of those I-don’t-want-to-do-it jobs. Come on women, you know you do it. You pass things to your husband that you are capable of doing but just don’t want to. Like killing bugs, unstopping the tub and…well…painting the walls. That is what I was doing on this day in June 2004.
I was painting the dining room walls in my condo and while doing so I stood on a kitchen chair to reach something. As I was up there a screwdriver must have rolled off of the table and onto the carpet, because as I was stepping off of the chair, I stepped right onto the screwdriver…which rolled under my foot… and I fell sideways onto the floor.
I lay there for a while. I wasn’t really hurt, although it did reinjure my right ankle, but I hadn’t hurt myself However I HAD grabbed onto the table on my way down, thus spilling green paint everywhere. So I got up, cleaned the paint off of the carpet and chair as best I could and decided to go shower the paint off of myself.
As I was standing in the shower both my right and left legs started to tingle more than usual, then the tingling turned into a stabbing pain and then nothing…they went numb… almost completely numb….from the knee down. As they went numb, I had slowly sunk to the bottom of the tub. I don’t remember if my back was hurting at the time, I just remember having the hardest time getting out of the tub, dragging myself to the dryer, which thankfully was in the bathroom, and getting dressed. I then drug myself down the hall and called 911.
I was a little embarrassed when the paramedics and fire engines showed up at the house. I was crying, scared and didn’t really know what to tell the paramedics other than that I had fallen and couldn’t get up. (hahahaha that is a good one.)
Anywho, they put me on a gurney and carried me down the stairs and into the ambulance.
My daughter, who was taking a nap at the time I called 911, had to stay with the fire department until my sister could rush up to my house. She got there just as they were loading me into the ambulance. After dropping my little one off with her husband she rushed up to the hospital to be with me.
The ER doctor didn’t really do much. In fact going to the ER was really a waste of time and money. He didn’t want to perform another MRI because I had just had one. So he did a lot of poking, prodding and I did a lot of waiting. And as time went on, slowly the feeling started coming back into my legs. At some point he released me and my sister took me home. I was scared, so very scared.
This incident made me fearful of going anywhere. I didn’t know if my legs would do that again and I didn’t want it to happen again. So I stayed in the house, reading books, watching TV and playing with my daughter.
Other than work I had made myself a prisoner in my own home.
The feeling never really came back into my legs completely after coming home from the hospital. I could walk, but my balance was awful and as each day wore on it got worse. I stopped lifting and carrying my daughter in fear that I would drop her and I started wearing shoes that were flat on the ground. No more heals for me.
In late June, while at a park with my family, my four year old daughter ran away form me.
Kids that age are always running, and it is usually AWAY from you.
I went to run after her as I had done since the day she learned to walk. However, while my mind told my legs to run…. They didn’t. I was stunned. I tried to run again and once again my legs moved at a slow walking pace. I couldn’t run anymore, it was the weirdest thing and it terrified me. I had a four year old who played outside and had one mode…fast. What would I do if she ran into the street or put herself into a dangerous situation?
As a mother, that made my heart jump. As a result I started keeping her inside and not allowing her to play out in the yard. I forced her to hold my hand everywhere we went. She hated that, boy did she hate that.
I was loosing the use of my legs, going paralyzed. I needed to accept that and come to terms with what was happening. I didn’t’ know why, but I knew what the end result would be. So in early July while at work I drove to a medical supply store and purchased a fold up cane. That night I went home, grabbed my daughter close to my heart and cried for hours
I went to see my doctor a few days later and with a lot of crying and well, sobbing really…. I told him I needed his help. I needed to know what was wrong with me. I wanted a name attached to what was happening to me. I wanted to know because I was hoping there was something I could do to stop it, or better yet…reverse it. I wanted my life back.
I have to tell you, I love my doctor. He is on the top of my list of people I admire. He is the type of doctor that if he doesn’t know the answer he will tell you he doesn’t know, he will then hunt down until he does know. He listens to you…he really does. And because he really listened to me and didn’t brush off what I said, he started the ball rolling that would lead to a diagnosis. While he feels guilt about how long that diagnosis took and that he didn’t do *blah blah blah* early enough, he doesn’t need to. Sometimes diagnosing someone is a crapshoot and a guessing game, especially when it comes to conditions doctors just don’t see. And he had never seen a case like mine. Even though he didn’t diagnoses me early enough to suite his conscience, he listened to me. He called for more tests and his actions led to my diagnosis.
I sat in his office that day, tears pouring down my cheeks while he performed test after test……and saw something that worried him. My feet didn’t seem to be equal when performing visual tests on the muscles. My left leg seemed weaker and I didn’t seem to be able to hold my left foot up. He listed off reasons for this but told me straight forward that because of how quickly this had all hit he suspected MS. He came right out and told me he had never seen anything like this before, but I think he was as scared as I was at how drastically downhill I was going. But before any more test were done he wanted to confirm what he saw visually. So he made an appointment for me with a doctor who could perform an EMG (Electromyography) test. This test is used to check the muscles and the nerves that control the muscles. This is done by inserting very thin needles with electrodes through your skin and into each muscle. The electrodes tell the machine whether the muscles and nerves are working properly.
I like to think of it as acupuncture with a purpose. They stuck something like 30 needles into each leg and expected me to like it.
Guess what…. I didn’t!
Who in their right mind would pay to have someone do that to you…not me, oh wait I guess I did pay for them to do that. Nevermind.
It was one of those needles. One stinkin’ tiny needle that was inserted into the bottom front of my left leg that showed something. And this something would be enough for Dr. Johnson to send me to a neurologist. And this neurologist would be the one to prescribe the test that would change my life forever.
Part 3 coming soon
I was painting the dining room walls in my condo and while doing so I stood on a kitchen chair to reach something. As I was up there a screwdriver must have rolled off of the table and onto the carpet, because as I was stepping off of the chair, I stepped right onto the screwdriver…which rolled under my foot… and I fell sideways onto the floor.
I lay there for a while. I wasn’t really hurt, although it did reinjure my right ankle, but I hadn’t hurt myself However I HAD grabbed onto the table on my way down, thus spilling green paint everywhere. So I got up, cleaned the paint off of the carpet and chair as best I could and decided to go shower the paint off of myself.
As I was standing in the shower both my right and left legs started to tingle more than usual, then the tingling turned into a stabbing pain and then nothing…they went numb… almost completely numb….from the knee down. As they went numb, I had slowly sunk to the bottom of the tub. I don’t remember if my back was hurting at the time, I just remember having the hardest time getting out of the tub, dragging myself to the dryer, which thankfully was in the bathroom, and getting dressed. I then drug myself down the hall and called 911.
I was a little embarrassed when the paramedics and fire engines showed up at the house. I was crying, scared and didn’t really know what to tell the paramedics other than that I had fallen and couldn’t get up. (hahahaha that is a good one.)
Anywho, they put me on a gurney and carried me down the stairs and into the ambulance.
My daughter, who was taking a nap at the time I called 911, had to stay with the fire department until my sister could rush up to my house. She got there just as they were loading me into the ambulance. After dropping my little one off with her husband she rushed up to the hospital to be with me.
The ER doctor didn’t really do much. In fact going to the ER was really a waste of time and money. He didn’t want to perform another MRI because I had just had one. So he did a lot of poking, prodding and I did a lot of waiting. And as time went on, slowly the feeling started coming back into my legs. At some point he released me and my sister took me home. I was scared, so very scared.
This incident made me fearful of going anywhere. I didn’t know if my legs would do that again and I didn’t want it to happen again. So I stayed in the house, reading books, watching TV and playing with my daughter.
Other than work I had made myself a prisoner in my own home.
The feeling never really came back into my legs completely after coming home from the hospital. I could walk, but my balance was awful and as each day wore on it got worse. I stopped lifting and carrying my daughter in fear that I would drop her and I started wearing shoes that were flat on the ground. No more heals for me.
In late June, while at a park with my family, my four year old daughter ran away form me.
Kids that age are always running, and it is usually AWAY from you.
I went to run after her as I had done since the day she learned to walk. However, while my mind told my legs to run…. They didn’t. I was stunned. I tried to run again and once again my legs moved at a slow walking pace. I couldn’t run anymore, it was the weirdest thing and it terrified me. I had a four year old who played outside and had one mode…fast. What would I do if she ran into the street or put herself into a dangerous situation?
As a mother, that made my heart jump. As a result I started keeping her inside and not allowing her to play out in the yard. I forced her to hold my hand everywhere we went. She hated that, boy did she hate that.
I was loosing the use of my legs, going paralyzed. I needed to accept that and come to terms with what was happening. I didn’t’ know why, but I knew what the end result would be. So in early July while at work I drove to a medical supply store and purchased a fold up cane. That night I went home, grabbed my daughter close to my heart and cried for hours
I went to see my doctor a few days later and with a lot of crying and well, sobbing really…. I told him I needed his help. I needed to know what was wrong with me. I wanted a name attached to what was happening to me. I wanted to know because I was hoping there was something I could do to stop it, or better yet…reverse it. I wanted my life back.
I have to tell you, I love my doctor. He is on the top of my list of people I admire. He is the type of doctor that if he doesn’t know the answer he will tell you he doesn’t know, he will then hunt down until he does know. He listens to you…he really does. And because he really listened to me and didn’t brush off what I said, he started the ball rolling that would lead to a diagnosis. While he feels guilt about how long that diagnosis took and that he didn’t do *blah blah blah* early enough, he doesn’t need to. Sometimes diagnosing someone is a crapshoot and a guessing game, especially when it comes to conditions doctors just don’t see. And he had never seen a case like mine. Even though he didn’t diagnoses me early enough to suite his conscience, he listened to me. He called for more tests and his actions led to my diagnosis.
I sat in his office that day, tears pouring down my cheeks while he performed test after test……and saw something that worried him. My feet didn’t seem to be equal when performing visual tests on the muscles. My left leg seemed weaker and I didn’t seem to be able to hold my left foot up. He listed off reasons for this but told me straight forward that because of how quickly this had all hit he suspected MS. He came right out and told me he had never seen anything like this before, but I think he was as scared as I was at how drastically downhill I was going. But before any more test were done he wanted to confirm what he saw visually. So he made an appointment for me with a doctor who could perform an EMG (Electromyography) test. This test is used to check the muscles and the nerves that control the muscles. This is done by inserting very thin needles with electrodes through your skin and into each muscle. The electrodes tell the machine whether the muscles and nerves are working properly.
I like to think of it as acupuncture with a purpose. They stuck something like 30 needles into each leg and expected me to like it.
Guess what…. I didn’t!
Who in their right mind would pay to have someone do that to you…not me, oh wait I guess I did pay for them to do that. Nevermind.
It was one of those needles. One stinkin’ tiny needle that was inserted into the bottom front of my left leg that showed something. And this something would be enough for Dr. Johnson to send me to a neurologist. And this neurologist would be the one to prescribe the test that would change my life forever.
Part 3 coming soon
2 comments:
I don't think you should be allowed to post anything until you are completly done with the whole thing. I am sitting here at work in tears and then there is no more. It is very hard to put into words the emotion I feel when I read your stuggles. You are an amazing person and I Love you very much. Cindy
The story IS finished I just enjoy driving you nuts by waiting a few days in between each part of the story.
But in reality, when I wrote it all down it was like 17 pages long...If I posted the whole thing NO ONE would be awake after page 10.
LOL
Charity
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