BIG. #17

God never gives you more than you can handle.

That's something I have to keep telling myself every single day.

Last post, I was telling you how I lost my hair, and then how I handled it.  At that time, that was the highest and most painful hurtle I had to jump over.  Looking back, it still is.

But it isn't over.

Since that time, I've continued physical therapy (3x a week) plus I spent the other four days a week in the gym, doing my own exercises, walking on the treadmill, and doing everything I can to get back.  My heart hurts not being able to run.  I've gotten stronger, but I still feel pain daily, some days worse than others.  I still have a lot of weakness in the leg, as most of the muscle in my right quad has been removed along with all of the fascia.  I haven't regained full range of motion in my knee.  It only bends partially, which is a big reason I'm not able to walk normally or be on my feet for long periods of time.

Right after my wedding, a new problem arose in my recovery.  I started falling.

It started on our honeymoon.  We were in the Kauai Airport in Hawaii and I was walking across the street where the buses and taxis pass for arrivals and departures.  In front of probably 1000 people, all of a sudden, I completely licked it and fell HARD in the middle of the street.  My purse and carry-on went flying, I scraped up my arm and leg, and I was in PAIN.  Tears poured down my face in pain, humiliation, and fear.  I was afraid I had broken something.  Jon, who was dragging all of our other suitcases, came running over and picked me up off the ground.  I hobbled over to the sidewalk, dusted myself off, and fought back tears.  I was scraped up pretty bad, but nothing was broken.  It was a strange fall.  I couldn't tell if my leg had given out, or if I slipped, or just took a bad step.  It was painful, but not the worst thing in the world.

Over the next month or so, the falls became more frequent and more severe.  They happened so fast that I couldn't tell what exactly was happening and why I was falling.  Each fall was a setback...I'd be in severe pain for a day or two and then be unable to go to PT and have to increase my pain medication.  Then, I'd get better, do fine for a few days, have a fall, and the process would revert back to the beginning.  My doctors were starting to get really concerned.  I have such a tiny amount of muscle left in my right quad and virtually no fascia to support and protect it, so any of these falls could easily result in a broken femur, which would be almost impossible to ever heal without muscle.  We tried a brace, we tried decreasing my physical therapy, we tried just having me walk slower and more aware.  Nothing helped.  Slowly, the walker was introduced back into my life, which sucked, as I thought I had rid myself of it forever before the wedding.  But my doctors insisted that I needed some mechanical support to grab onto when I started going down.

About a month and a half ago, Dr. G was maneuvering my knee in the office and having me do some exercises and realized just how little progress my knee has made in terms of range of motion.  "Well Ames," he said, "I'm convinced now there is something going on with this knee.  I think this is why you're falling, why you're not walking right, why you're still in pain, and why we've plateaued."  He referred me to a Sports Orthopedic doctor to look at my knee, the muscle in my quad, and what the heck was going on in there.

A week later, I was at the appointment, and they xray'ed my hip, quad, and knee.  Besides there being almost no muscle in my right quad, there was nothing broken at the time.  There was quite a bit of scar tissue and arthritic changes in the knee and the little muscle left in the quad had adhered itself to the bones in the knee.  He ordered an MRI.

After the appointment, I headed over to physical therapy.  They started using an electroshock machine to stimulate the muscle in the leg which hurt like hell.  Other than that, it was a normal day in PT.  On my drive home, I was sitting at a red light when all of a sudden, a car going full speed slammed into the back of my car, smushing the back end of my car into the front like an accordion and crushing my bad leg into the dashboard.  I also hit my head and had whiplash.  Before I knew it, I was in the back of an ambulance on the way to the ER.  Another hospitalization.  I was terrified.