Healing can happen

RSD: Really Scary Disease
Withstanding the trials and tribulations of RSD/CRPS

Healing can happen but a proper and timely diagnosis is essential.
Attitude is everything along with an uncommon blend of patience, persistence,
faith, hope, instincts, insistence and an unrelenting quest for answers.
Tina A. Mohr
~~~~~~~

"SOMATOFORM DISORDER WITH UNDERLYING DEPRESSION" read the neurologist's summary. Being a licensed massage therapist who had worked in injury care for over ten years, I knew all too well what the doctor's words meant. It was his professionally 'polite' way of saying, "It's all in her head." Now I understood why he had quickly shuttled me out of his office. My mind drifted back to his offhanded comment. "I think you'll be ok," he dismissed, nodding to me reassuringly. Now, retroactively, I understood that cheesy grin. Even at the time, I wanted to believe the doctor. I wanted to believe that I would be "ok". It had been a year since my accident. I thought after one year, for sure, I would be have been fully recovered.

As I sat reading the doctor's report, I questioned myself. Somatoform disorder? How could this pain and these problems be something I was imagining or making up? Depression? I didn't think I was depressed, at least not until I read this doctor's diagnosis. Why would I need or want to manifest this hideous, burning pain and these weird symptoms in my left arm, hand, leg and foot? Could this pain and these bizarre symptoms be something I 'wanted'? Could it be that I was kidding myself? Could it be that I was trying to make a bigger deal of my slip and fall injury just to get attention or make a legal case? Searching deep in my psyche, the honest answer to these questions was an unequivocal and resounding 'NO'; in fact, if anything, I thought I was being a real trooper, a really good sport, about being injured.

I always thought of myself as having a high pain threshold. Years earlier I had given birth to twins and not once did I even think to ask for pain meds or anything of the sort. I was one of those lucky women who viewed having a baby as an athletic event, but not painful. As a former competitive athlete, I was used to overriding pain. As a medical massage therapist specializing in injury care, I had spent a good part of the last ten years of my life helping people get out of pain. I could deal with this injury, I thought; I was an 'expert' at helping people get out of pain. I knew the protocol to address my initial orthopedic injuries and I followed them to a tee.

When the accident happened I was out of town and attending a professional conference. Returning to my hotel just after the conference I was walking alone on a public sidewalk just after midnight. With no warning that I was about to precariously plummet onto the pavement, my foot slid helplessly on a mini waterway of slippery soapy fluid draining from inside an open-air shopping mall. I hadn't seen the sudsy stream ominously trickling from inside the building onto the sidewalk. No orange 'caution' cones were set out to warn passers-by. Poor lighting did not help matters either. Bam! Before I knew it, I felt a strong slam. Face down on the sidewalk I was trying to figure out what had happened. What did I hear? A sound of a motor seemed to come from a distance. I slowly lifted my head off the pavement and turned my face in that direction. I squinted trying to focus. It was then that I saw the late night janitor operating a large floor-cleaning machine inside the shopping area.