Chronic Pain and Perspective
I live with pain every day. The worst of it is in my right leg and foot – a result of being struck by a car in 2011. My leg was broken, the ankle dislocated, the nerve damaged, and the injury developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). After about eighteen months of rehab, hydrotherapy, and pain seminars, the surgeon confessed he never expected me to recover as much as I did. He told me he expected the foot to be all shriveled and shiny from the nerve damage. In my last appointment with him several months later, he laughed when I asked if it’d ever recover fully. He said the…
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On the evening of 30 June 2011, a car struck me as I crossed the street, breaking my right leg and dislocating my ankle. From the onset, the surgeon cautioned me that this was ‘a very bad break’, but I had no idea what that would ultimately mean. A lack of feeling in my foot caused some concern, but from the onset doctors were focused on the swelling. An x-fixator (like a scaffolding) was screwed into my leg to hold the bones in place. The surgeon told me he couldn’t operate while it was so swollen, because there might be a problem closing me up again, which would lead to…