Healing can happen
(Continued)

I don't much remember the actual fall. Once I was on the ground, though, I knew I had hit hard. It was all I could do to scrape myself off the sidewalk and stand up. It took me a while to get my breath, to orient myself. It would take me much longer to ultimately realize the bigger picture-what was really in store for me.

After those first couple weeks, I returned to work part time but with some difficulty. Just the same, I was determined not to let the injury get the better of me. I treated myself as I had so many patients I had worked with over the years. I rested and moderated my work schedule. Gradually, I did more and more, trying to return to work full time, but with difficulty. Why did every thing seem so hard? I did not want to admit to the pain or the problems I was experiencing; I did not even want to admit it to myself. Never did I imagine that a slip and fall accident could end up causing the inexorable nightmare I was experiencing. At that point, optimism was my closest ally.

A couple months after the fateful tumble, it was advised that my left knee was definitively in need of orthopedic medical intervention. A left lateral meniscal tear was diagnosed and surgery was recommended. "You'll bounce back in no time," I was told.
Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly how I would describe my experience. The first time I got up on crutches the day after the surgery I vaguely recall muttering to myself in a Vicodan haze, "I'd rather have a baby!" My knee hurt like crazy! It was swollen up to the size of a large Florida grapefruit. My husband had just left for a business trip to Japan a day or so after my surgery. Time and rest, I thought, would help me recover. I took it as easy a mother with her husband out of town could and hobbled around on crutches to do the things I had to do. My daughters were of tremendous help and offered lots of hugs and reassurance.

At my post surgical follow-up visit, the doctor told me he had also done a 'lateral release' to help reposition the patella to help normalize my 'kneecap'. The lateral release, he clarified, may explain the extra degree of pain and swelling. Gradually, with physical therapy, little by little, my knee improved. The pain I was still feeling was a tell-tale sign that recovery might take some time. I had this odd numb feeling in my lower leg and a weird burning feeling on the outside of my knee. It felt quite strange, but again, I was optimistic. "What do you expect post-surgically?" I thought. I tried to convince myself it would all be just fine. I looked forward to a gradual but complete recovery.

Weeks later, I was at a restaurant with my family. I picked up a glass of ice water with my left hand. A stinging cold pain made me put down the glass immediately. "Wow, that glass is cold," I said. I picked up the glass with my right hand but it felt a 'normal' cold. I touched the glass again with my left hand, "Wow!" I said again! The glass felt so much colder to my left hand than to my right hand. It actually hurt to hold the glass in my left hand. "My arm had been numb after the fall and now the nerve was repairing", I thought to myself. "After all, I did hit my elbow and had a big abrasion. Maybe the nerve is healing and it's just sensitive", I thought to myself. Even then, though, I think I knew better.

A couple days later, I was in the shower. I leaned to my right. "Whoa!" the water got burning hot. "Who flushed a toilet in the other bathroom?!" I thought. I tried to duck out of the way of the cascading water. Soon I leaned back into the water and it felt 'normal' hot again. I leaned again to the left. "Whoah!" the water got burning hot again! I leaned to the right and it once again felt 'normal'. After leaning to the left and to the right a few times in succession, I soon realized that the left side of my body perceived the water to be much hotter than the right side of my body. "That's weird!" I thought. Little did I know that this strange phenomenon was the beginning of something that was destined to change my life; the onset of a real problem that would persist, haunt and torment me.

Weeks later I was in a parking lot walking past a large refrigerated ice truck. As I walked near the giant truck, my left arm and face began to sense a strong vibration. The oscillation from the motor of the truck seemed magnified in my arm and face. I backed up a few steps away from the truck and the sensation disappeared. Again I walked forward and I could again feel the strange sensation in my left arm and face. Was I imagining things? What was this strange twist? It was only much later I realized that it was, in fact, an eerie portent of what lay ahead.

Still in pain but still optimistic, I had gradually over several months time returned to work full time. It was the first week I had worked a full time schedule since my slip and fall accident. One night near the end of that week at three in the morning, I awoke with a startle. "What was that?" It felt as though something on my left arm was crawling and burning. There was a deep, almost throbbing and fiery ache in my arm. It was very painful. Then a breeze crept in through the open window by my bed and immediately accentuated the pain. In a drowsy daze I thought, "Boy, this is just like RSD." I tried to go back to sleep but the pain was too intense. Unable to sleep, I awoke. My arm was killing me. I gently massaged it then wrapped it in a blanket to keep it warm and protected.

I had studied Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) in massage therapy school. I remember cringing when my teacher was describing the symptoms. It sounded just horrible. Then in the first year of my massage therapy career I met a woman who had the dreaded disease. She had injured her hand while working with a printing press at a copy center. Unrecognized and left untreated, the disease progressed to the point that she had constant, intractable pain. At one point in her life she had been a vibrant Tahitian dancer entertaining at Disney World. When I met her she lay in bed barely able to move or function. She needed full time home health care and eventually an implanted morphine pump. I was asked to treat her with specialized massage techniques and craniosacral therapy at home to help her be more comfortable. She was very appreciative and continually thanked me for the help I offered her. I only visited her a few times. I have always had tremendous compassion for her even though I have not seen her in years.
Then I could not even begin to imagine or fathom her pain.

By the winter of 2000 I learned that I slept best with my left arm in my down ski jacket and my left hand protected with a winter glove. Hawaii winters are relatively warm but my left arm and hand found even the slightest rumination of a whisper cool breeze to be unbearable and my arm and hand begged to be well protected. The same sensation, though to a lesser degree, began to appear in my left foot and gradually crept up into my lower left leg. The intrinsic muscles in my left hand atrophied and my hand felt clumsy. Initially, I was sent to an arm specialist who x-rayed my elbow and reported the elbow to be okay. He advised SSEP nerve conduction testing and a cervical MRI. The nerve conduction testing of both left extremities came out normal. My cervical MRI showed problems but they did not exactly correlate to the subtle atrophic changes in my left hand.