Help! I Have Rsd!

On June 9, 2010 I fell in our basement.  I had already been struggling with plantar fascitis in my left foot, which was painful enough in itself.  With the plantar fascitis came quite a bit of swelling, so dumb me kicked off my shoes (to give me swollen feet a break) when I came home from work for lunch.  THEN I decided to go down to our basement to start a load of laundry.  Our house is one of those big old early 1920's two-story homes with an old cement basement.  This basement had what I call "potholes"  (my husband hates that term!) from moving appliances, etc.  Anyway, my bad foot  (with no shoe on!) went right into one of those potholes, and I was instantly down for the count.  It suddenly felt like three violin strings in the bottom of my foot stretched to the point of snapping!  I had to crawl up the basement steps and crawl through a few rooms downstairs before I could get close enough to the staircase going to the second floor, where my husband was at the time.  I yelled up to him for help and was able to return back to work  (not even late!) after lunch with the help of some old crutches that we had in the house.  I knew that I was in a lot of pain, but I didn't think that I had broken any bones.  My specialist took x-rays and suspected from the amount of pain that I was in, that I possibly had two stress fractures in my foot.  She immediately put me into a wheelchair with a cast. 

Although my doctor tried to get an MRI to confirm the stress fractures and also to see if I had  torn any ligaments, my insurance refused the MRI, so my doctor was forced to treat my injury very aggressively, as if I had the broken bones and torn ligaments, also.  I was 100 percent non-weight bearing for two whole months, which I believe made my undiagnosed RSD worse.  FINALLY after two months of treatment, my insurance okayed the MRI, which showed NO broken bones and NO torn ligaments.  It only showed my severe plantar fascitis and some arthritis.  So I wasted two months in a wheelchair when I should have been in physical therapy.

It was the evening after my MRI when I suddenly had the worst ankle pain.  I just thought that I was in pain because my cast was off  (since they needed it off to do the MRI), so I toughed it out through the night.  The following morning I actually woke myself up CRYING because I was in so much pain in my foot, ankle, and calf!  I also noticed that my foot was very discolored and extremely tender to the touch.  It was then that my husband took me to the ER.  The ER doc ran tests to check for blood clots, etc. and everything looked fine.  When I questioned him about the discoloration of my foot, he shrugged it off. 

The next day I followed up with my foot specialist, told her about the pain, showed her the discoloration, etc.  She took a deep breath and began her talk with me saying, "This is nothing that you've done wrong and there was no way that you could have prevented it, BUT...I think you have something called RSD."  Once she explained to me how serious, life-long and possibly debilitating RSD is, I broke down crying immediately.  As soon as I got home from my appointment I was on the internet trying to read everything I could on RSD.  The pictures of deformed limbs were the scariest.

The next week the neurologist confirmed my doctor's diagnosis of RSD, but this time I was ready for it.  I had equipped myself with knowledge, prepared myself, but most of all I did a lot of praying and had my family and also my church family praying for me.  God gave me, a total spazoid and worry-wort such a PEACE.  I can't describe the calm that He gave me about this.  I'm in a lot of pain, especially since I started trying to walk today, but I know that God will give me the grace to get through each day.  So, even though the mortal side of me is yelling  "HELP!  I HAVE RSD!", my immortal soul is thanking God for being with me, literally every "step" of the way.  Trust in God and He will get you through ANYTHING!