When you live with a chronic condition, it is your life line to have a family doctor that is in your corner. Before I moved, my family doctor had given me a large prescription for my pain meds and told me that I needed to take my time to find a family doctor, and to try and talk to different locals and friends and get an "in" that way. I started to run low on my medication but couldn't find a family doctor. My pelvic floor physiotherapist had tried searching for me as well, and came up with dead ends. There was a walk in clinic connected to the same building where I had my physio and so I thought I would give it a shot and knew that most likely my chances were very slim, as they don't prescribe pain meds to walk in patients.
My name got called and I sat in the examination room waiting for the walk in clinic doctor to come in. I explained my situation and tried to do a quick, fast tracked version of all that I had been through to catch him up. He asked me again what the name of my hometown was and then smiled. He started to reminisce about his younger days and told me that he had been to my little hometown once before. He said "What was the name of that bar that was there? It had a really funny name." He kept on throwing out some unfamiliar names and then I realized what place he was talking about. The name had since changed but the local bar used to be called, "Hanky Panky's." He laughed, "Yes, yes that's it!" That's where I earned my nickname from some of my buddies." I can't quite remember the nickname that he told me but I think it was "Pinky" or something like that. He told me that he believed me and trusted me and that he was completely okay with prescribing me my pain meds. Then he went on to some of his own theories of what it might be that I was experiencing. This doctor told me that only a few doctors know about this condition and have been trained. He said he had taken a class on it way back in the day and if I wanted, he could do the procedure for me. The condition is called "back mouse" and the procedure consists of taking a thicker needle and stabbing the "back mouse" over and over again until it breaks up and then the body absorbs the rest.
He gave me his card and told me that anytime I wanted to give this procedure a try, that I could give him a call and he'd do it. At this point in time, I was desperate for answers and even more desperate for pain relief. When we were driving back home from Victoria, I excitedly told Brandon about this whole thing. Thankfully I have a husband who has a good head on his shoulders and keeps me in check. "You're not seriously considering doing this are you?" He asked me. "Well, wouldn't hurt to try and maybe see. He told me to research it and see if I felt like I could relate. So I thought I'd do that first." I said. "Keana, I know we want answers but I don't think it's a good idea to just have ANYONE touch your body. What if this guy causes more harm than good? Than what?" I kind of resisted a bit but knew that he was right. I didn't want my issues to get worse, especially with no true diagnosis. When I looked up the "back mouse," I could relate to some of the pain issues but I didn't feel any lumps anywhere and other things just didn't line up either.
Brandon got concerned that I didn't have a family doctor and had decided to try out the local clinic that was up the road from our condo and see if they had any openings. They had a nurse practitioner that had some openings and he had a quick meet and greet with her. He explained our situation and she said that she was willing to take the whole family on. We were really excited and grateful.
When it came time for me to meet the nurse practitioner, I had the whole family with me and my first impression was I thought she was okay, not the most chipper woman but she would do. I had to go see her often to keep things in check for the ongoing car insurance/ lawyer situation and to keep things recorded. There was this one particular meeting that I had with her that made my internal alarm system go off. I was explaining some of my ongoing back/pelvis pain, and she rolled her eyes at me and did this overexaggerated sigh. She than told me that she suffers with a bit of back pain and that I needed to suck it up, in a round about way. I was taken back a bit but thought maybe I had gotten her on a bad day.
Me and my pelvic floor physiotherapist had developed a really good relationship. I really trusted her. She had given me this book (https://www.noigroup.com/product/explain-pain-handbook-protectometer-media-pack/) that talks about pain and how to manage it. There was this whole sticky note method and depending on the day, life stressors, etc....you'd change around your color coded sticky notes to help you pain manage. Because I had no solid diagnosis, I grew tired of living my life around my pain. My lawyers had encouraged me to try to live my life as best as I could, because life goes on. Prior to reading this book, I thought that if I tried to carry on like I wasn't hurt, maybe my body would catch up and I would magically be all good. I also didn't want the pain to depict what I could and couldn't do and tried my best to live like everyone else, which only caused these massive waves of up and down, causing me to be laid up on the couch for a week or weeks to recover. When I'd feel like I was having a better day, I'd push it too far and so the vicious cycle went round and round. My physiotherapist told me that each day that I wake up, I needed to evaluate my baseline and that is what my day will be decided upon. Then I needed to ask myself a series of questions. Can my body handle this today? If yes, than go to next question, if no than that's the end of that. Will this potentially cause bodily harm? If yes, than no to the activity, if no than proceed to the next question. And so on and so on. She wrote it all out on a sheet of paper for me to follow everyday. My back couldn't handle grabbing things off of the floor or bending down and she showed me this maneuver that I had to do each time. It is called the golfers lift (https://www.spine-health.com/conditions/sports-and-spine-injuries/additional-lifting-techniques-avoid-back-injury ) As many people know having kids and all of the things they leave on the floor and then trying to pick up after them and having to do this teeter totter maneuver over and over again, it became really tiresome. I also didn't realize how often I kicked things to the side on the floor out of my way, until I was told that it was too much to do that and had to stop. It has amazed me at how we do so many things without even thinking about them. Our bodies and minds are pretty remarkable things and until I was unable to do these easy and normal things, I really took it all for granted.
( from spine-health.com)
My youngest sister was getting married, the one that I talked about in this post: https://www.petiteflower.net/post/change-is-coming
Her maid of honor was trying to plan her bachelorette party and threw out the idea of floating down the water channel in tubes. I knew right away that this body of mine would not be able to handle it and so I sheepishly told her that I was so sorry that they could go on without me, as I didn't want to wreck the fun, but I wouldn't be able to participate. She than came up with another idea, which was playing laser tag. I didn't think it would be a big deal but when I ran it by my physiotherapist she said "I'm so sorry but that would be a no. It's in the dark and if you were to trip or fall, it could cause more harm to you. Your body just can't handle it." I felt so embarrassed, and struggled finding the words to say that I couldn't participate in that either. It's these types of things that make it hard and it becomes this mind struggle to live within the limitations. I also really struggled with the fact that my car accident was minor compared to my little sister's and she had major surgery and yet she was able to conquer it and get back on her feet within six months. As awful as this may sound, I was jealous at the fact that she was able to live a more normal life than I was able to. It didn't make sense to my brain as to how such a stupid, small accident that I was in wreaked so much havoc on my body and yet no answers. I know the science was explained to me over and over but it just didn't feel fair to me. Not that I wished my sister any suffering or anything, just to set the record straight.
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