June 12, 2018
The next week at my house was much of the same. I was able to do a little more on my own though. Although slow, in movement and time, I started being able to shower on my own. I still hadn’t left my house yet as even walking proved to be a daunting task. We have a golf cart that we’ve always drove around our neighborhood, I couldn’t even stand to be on it because of the shaking. Each bump just made me want to cry, I can’t even explain the amount of pain it caused.
It was time for my first outing since surgery, my first post op visit. This is roughly a 2 1/2 hour drive from my house. During the trip up, there were several times that I wasn’t sure I was going to make it that far. But we finally made it and got into the doctors office. The nurse came in to assess my incision and ask me about my pain. I told her I had been in excruciating pain since the surgery. I tell her about the pain of bumps even in the car ride up. She tells me that’s not normal for this surgery. She says they don’t have many people have the surgery that I had, but the ones who have didn’t complain of the pain I’m having. At this time, I’m thinking, “G’s thanks lady!” When people say things like that it makes you feel like your exaggerating your pain or that you’re a wimp. But I know what I felt (and continue to feel) and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
The surgeon comes in and says, “So, you’re still having a lot of pain?” I start explaining to him how I’m finally able to shower on my own, but doing normal every day tasks still wasn’t possible. I attempt to explain the amount of pain that comes with bumps or movement. I say attempt because I don’t feel I’ve even come close to explaining how it actually feels. It’s just not even something you can wrap your head around. I’ve said before to people who ask, the best way for me do describe it is I just try to imagine the worst pain I’ve ever felt and it’s so much worse than that. Once I get done attempting to explain how I was feeling the surgeon takes my dressing off. He sits back in his seat and he strokes his mouth with his hand while looking at me, you can see he’s thinking. He says, “I really hope you don’t have RSD, that would be horrible and very unfortunate. But from what I know if it, it sure sounds like you do.” He goes on to ask me if I knew what RSD was and I didn’t. He said I had probably studied it in nursing school, but it was rare. He says that he reluctantly would suggest I research it. He wanted me to compare how I was feeling to what I read to see if it correlates. He didn’t want to say for sure that’s what I had, but that he was very concerned.
He said he wanted to see me back before he would release me to go back to work. As much as I love work, I knew I wasn’t ready to go back. He said he wanted to see me back after my upcoming vacation. Oh yea, we have a trip to Alaska coming up in two weeks! We had been planning this trip for quite some time and had no insurance on the trip. So, if we decided not to go we were out quite a bit of money. He gave my husband doctors orders to carry my bags! Ha! We scheduled the next office visit for after our trip and we were on our way home. I thought it was smooth sailing from there. I thought the worst was over with that trip. Boy was I wrong!
Ami’s Journey 