Several years ago my body was in crisis and a multitude of things came crashing down on me. On January 3, my son’s birthday, I decided to ride back. Why did I decide to race like I was a kid I do not know? I was already suffering from chronic pain on the right side of my body. I had a tear in my right hip and severe pain down my leg (sciatica). In addition to my shoulder and arm which always hurt. That day I was having fun and started racing in circles. My life flashed before me as I saw the median getting closer and I was losing control of the bike. I remember saying, “Not my bad hip, not my bad hip, don’t fall.” And boom I fell, twisted my knee and landed on my hip. Thank goodness a family was there when I fell. I was far from my house and no way I could walk there. They called my husband and he had to come to pick me up. Of course, he thought I was exaggerating, and told me to get up. The bruise on my hip was huge and horrendous that was the first thing to start hurting. Then a few hours after the injury, I could hardly walk, I felt something in my knee. This really sucked because it was my son’s birthday and we had plans to take him to dinner. So, I wobbled up the stairs to take a shower. I thought I needed to stretch because my thigh was tight, huge mistake. I asked my son Gabriel to help me stretch my quad. Oh boy, my ACL tore, we both felt the pop. I was able to take a shower and walk to the restaurant. By the time dinner was over my knee was huge and I couldn’t walk. I had to jump all the way out of the Restaurant. The extreme force of jumping after eating made my stomach hurt and all my dinner came out, barf. My friends Vanessa and Ferni offered to watch the kids, but my husband still thought I was exaggerating and the ER wasn’t going to do anything because I needed an MRI. Thankfully, I had some friends that had a knee injury and told me of a surgeon. I called the doctor and got an appointment for that Monday. But that didn’t help the fact that my knee was a balloon and I couldn’t bear any weight. It was time to stay downstairs and live on the couch all weekend. Of course, as a nurse I know that knee injuries have a hard recovery and MRI can’t been done until the swelling subsides. I went to the doctor and he gave me pain killers and I was walking with a walker. Yep, I was a little old lady. The fact is because of my chronic pain and numbness on my arm, I am not able to use crutches. Since, I work in an Emergency, I didn’t want to take time off until the summer, so I chose surgery to help relieve the pain. I was in surgery for a while and it helped with swelling and some pain. But the fact is I love to dance and workout. I could not squat down to the toilet much less dance. I knew that I had to get it fixed. So, I lived in flats until the summer, their was no way to get into a heel with a torn ACL. My ACL repair went well but recovery was tough. I knew recovery would suck, I have been through so many it was a give in. Fibromyalgia and EDS III make recovering much harder. These conditions require you to stay active and use your muscles, bed rest only aggravates it. As, I started to improve my knee, my entire body hurt. I did therapy for 2 months before I was able to return to work. During my recovery, I started getting severe abdominal pain and fainting episodes. Here we go again, some other crap to deal with. My first fainting episode was on July 4th about 1 week after surgery. There were many after that. The worst one was in the middle of the night. The abdominal cramps were combined with hot flashes. I woke up super hot and in pain. I remember walking down stairs to get something to drink and the heat starting rising, my ears got hot, I started to see spots. I remember saying, “Oh shit, oh shit” before I went down. I tried to catch my fall by kneeling and stretching out my hands but it didn’t work. I hit the floor with a big thump and woke up with my husband screaming and kicking me, “wake up.” Needles to say, I had hit my head and my elbow which were hurting. After that episode, I went to the ED because the pain was intense. It turned out I had over done it on Motrin and it was affecting my liver. I was so upset because I had to miss my friends 40th birthday party and my clinical class as well. You see I am not supposed to use Motrin in the first place because I get gastritis, but the unbearable pain for months had me desperate. The CT scan showed that the fibroid I had in my uterus had grown to the size of an orange. Every time my menstruation came the fibroid would pull my blood and I would faint. This episode was no exception but at least I knew what was causing the pain. But after that day I knew that I had to get the fibroid out. The choices were an open c-section to get the fibroid or a laparoscopic hysterectomy. I did my research and decided laparoscopic was the way to go. The hard part was accepting that I definitely could not have any more children. You see I always wanted 4 kids. But the fact I knew was my body just wasn’t equipped to have another child anyway. Each pregnancy created more havoc on my body and illness multiplied. Add breastfeeding each baby for a year and I was falling apart. I was sad, but I knew it was time to take my uterus out. So December of the same year, I had my partial hysterectomy. My liver recovered and I went home a few days after. I had to monitor my liver for a few months and was cleared. The hysterectomy recovery was just as hard as the ACL, bed rest was so horrible on my body. It took me 6 weeks to return to work. My hormones were crazy, I was having hot flashes and spotting. My hot flashes continued for 6-8 months after the procedure. Thankfully, I had learned to hydrate and cool down during these episodes to avoid fainting. I have learned a lot over the years. I have learned to listen to my body and pay attention to every detail. Thankfully, since that awful year, I have not had another surgery. I have seen changes in my body and know that I am ready for whatever the world brings for me. I am able to resolve pain and symptoms within a few days now which was impossible before. I know my the little yellow pill combo pack is the secret to the changes my body has experienced. I am happy that my body will continue to age gracefully, because I was definitely spiraling badly before. I know if someone would have told me about it sooner, my life would have been very different. I can’t claim that this is a cure, treat, mitigate or prevent disease but I can tell you the root cause of disease is oxidative stress. Ask me about your oxidative stress and symptoms.
