My Journey..Continued

I added on to my autofightbio and am naturally going to share it. I'm posting it now and then going to post some more about it and like a regular blog post after. It's very long again and certainly won't fit along with quotes and all I have ramble on about. So enjoy and I'll blog you soon!

I go home all excited, keen on getting better and certain I will. My mom is making spaghetti…I can’t walk but am in a good mood. I’m confident that I am on my way to recovery. I’m on my way…but I’m not sure as though recovery is the proper word for where I was headed.
I begin attending pool therapy appointments but all the while things are not improving. It’s getting harder and harder to survive school. I crutch around trying to explain what’s wrong with me, when no one is really sure. I strongly remember getting bumped in the hallway falling, putting weight on my foot and crying out. It was rough, trying to stay focused when the pain was so intense it overpowered my thoughts. I tried, and my grades didn’t suffer, but definitely weren’t up to my average. This didn’t bother me so much. I was too focused on what was going on outside of school. I had to have tests I’ve never before heard of and attend pool therapy which was unbearable. The water scalded my skin it was cold and purple and when the 80 degree water hit it, it wasn’t pleasant. In fact the color change in my foot wasn’t only concerning to me. After my first few pool appointments I went to see Erika, my regular PT again. She was so concerned at its temperature, she sent me to get it checked out right away. She thought I may have a blood clot or something else abnormal…with so much PT and exercise from crutches my whole body should have been sweaty and warm. My foot was far from it. it was freezing to nearly numb, cold and clammy. I had to go to the ER and I was terrified. I was also, slowing wearing out.
We had to trek from the PT office to my doctor’s office. Erika suggested we try there first, because it’s much keeper than the ER. It’s freezing outside, my hands feel like icicles and my tummy feels sick from being sweaty out in the cold. I crutch along my muscles twitching as they exude the force it takes to lift me and my purple, abnormally cold limb. Finally we enter the warmth of the doctor’s office. We go and tell the receptionist our situation, and make our way down the dark hallway to pediatrics. We are not pleased by what we find. The room is filled, nearly every chair. There’s coughing children, crying babies and less than amused parents. I’m less than amused. I just crutched down a hill and across a street to get here and now we had to turn around and go back to the ER. This worried me. I’d never been to the ER before.
The pro side to this situation is that my dad realizes me crutching back across the street and uphill this time is going to be a massive tasks. We go out to the receptionist desk and he asks if there’s anyway we could get transportation. By some strange coincidence there is. My town is much less than practical but, they do have a shuttle from the hospital to the clinic. Hooray! When I think shuttle I’m expecting a like van or bus. Nope, it’s the security car. We pull up to main entrance of the hospital in the security car. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the ride, but it probably looked a little strange. I guess now that I look back I shouldn’t have been concerned with that aspect at all. We crutch inside. There is a piano which plays automatically. The keys move even! It’s very amusing, but unfortunately I don’t get to stay and watch it. We need to find our way to the ER. The receptionist seems overly perky considering she’s in a hospital. She hollers at us and asks if I’d like a wheelchair. My dad turns to me, asking me with his eyes. I tell him No. Why… pride? Really I’m not sure. I wish I’d said yes. It would have been way simpler than crutching up ramps and around corners and in and out of elevators. Somehow, we find our way to the emergency department. Of course, it is as just as full as the doctor’s office, but the ER doesn’t close. I’m terrified now. I’m sure my eyes must have been leaking tears. I really did not want to be there. I had no idea what to expect. My dad seemed overly calm, but it was not helping me one bit.
After filling out papers and sitting in a wheelchair because they forced me to… we get called into triage. They ask tons of questions. There’s not much we can tell them. We still don’t know what is wrong with my foot we just know it shouldn’t be how it is. They take history and vital signs. I hate having my blood pressure taken, it urks me. You see, I didn’t know that getting your normal blood pressure taken is really a piece of cake compared to the weird things that would happen in the coming hours.
It’s kind of a blur really, all the events along this journey but I do know when I was in the ER I heard a lot of interesting people…and waited a very long time. I got taken into a bed and for long periods of time they did nothing. I was growing hungrier by this time. The PT appointment was around 4 o’clock if I remember correctly so we were there all through dinner and into the night. We didn’t leave the ER until around 10 at night. They ran tests. Weird tests. I don’t remember what order they were in but I remember all the test and events clearly. All gave no significant results, but we spent the money on them. So I’ll share.
One called a Doppler, which made me think of Doppler radar, like for the weather. I guess that makes sense seems how temperature deals with weather…but it was really like an ultrasound. They took that blue gooey stuff and put it on my foot. I’ve always heard that that stuff is really cold, but to me it felt warm, that’s just how cold my foot was. They then took a little pen like thing attached to a speaker…or this is how I see it. They broadcasted the sounds of my blood in my foot to the whole ER, basically. It was loud. This is good. This means that there was moving blood in it. Off course they couldn’t just do one thing and be done with it. So we sat around and waited.
They also gave me an EKG. This is for my heart. I mean sure, blood flow deals with your heart, but really I think it was just another money waster. If I’d had any real trouble they probably would have been come other symptoms by now, I’d assume. They did it anyways. Stupid super sticky electrode things were stuck to my chest and hooked up to a machine which printed out those up and down lines which told them, guess what?! My heart was just fine. Then I had to get the dumb stickies off. Which was very tricky and it hurt quite a great deal. Nothing compared to my foot which was being touched and poked and prodded making it feel like gasoline had been poured on it and lit on fire.
Another test they did was my blood pressure. I know I already mentioned blood pressure but this was much worse. They took it on the big veins on MY HIPS. Yes they slid huge blood pressure sleeve things up my legs to the top of my thighs. It was so incredibly painful. It made me twist and cringe and tear. Turns out, it was fine, imagine that.
I hope you are getting the sense that no one really had any idea what was going on. They really didn’t, including me. I was sent home that night, hungry, with a lavender foot which felt as though it belonged on a dead body and no answers. Oh joy.
The only one who had hit on the right thing so far was someone who wasn’t a doctor. My PT. She’d mentioned when I first went that’d they’d be looking into RSD. We didn’t know what this was and weren’t concerned. I was technically being treated for it, that’s why she was so urgent with pool therapy, but we didn’t know that. She wasn’t the doctor. We were still listening to doctors, stupid us. Next stop was the podiatrist. He brought RSD and this time it was getting more serious. He didn’t just bring it up. He thought it really could be it. He told us it wasn’t plantar fasciitis. This guy was very tall, nice but kind of strange. He had dark hair and a semi-receding hairline. He was young and not very confident in his skills; he told us things but always wanted to be sure there was something else he could do to make sure he was right. Over my course of seeing him these ideas were reinforced. Not to get off track. The first visit he said No plantar fasciitis, possible RSD, need a bone scan. It was back to the hospital.
By now there were thick calluses on my sides, which burned when in contact with water. My foot too hated anything touching it. It was freezing and felt like fire was burning it or it had an irritating ache that was from far within. It drove me insane and everyone was just taking there sweet time figuring out what was up. School was living hell. Kids of course didn’t believe me and neither did teachers. Why should they, I had no idea what was going on. They thought it was me abusing my “privileges” to the elevator and help form others. Really I was very very sick of the “help.” I hated not being able to do things when I wanted and how I wanted. I hated taking my friends out of classes to help me, causing a scene. I didn’t like having to wait at the top of the stairs for an elevator which exited far away from all my lower level classes. I couldn’t hold up this way much longer. It was a big downward spiral spinning out of control, eventually into a wheelchair.