"CRPS won this week"

That is a quote from a text Jo sent me yesterday...CRPS has certainly had the upper hand this week, but have we given up? I think not!

Poor Jo had a nasty fall on Tuesday afternoon and I am still worried about whether she did some serious damage to her back when she fell on the concrete but I am hoping that it will settle down soon as long as she takes it easy. She didn't have a nice time in ED which is worrying when they do not take someone in pain seriously. Please say a few prayers that she will bounce back to feeling better really soon. I feel bad cos I would like to be able to help her out and make things easier for her but I cant.

Another of our friends (who also has crps) is having a rough time at work and it is not helping the situation. I think by Friday it became too much to handle so a few prayers for her would also be much appreciated. That her work situation settles down soon and that things are made easier to handle for her. Its bad enough the stress of working full time without people having personal vendettas against you.

And as for me, I followed in Jo's footsteps.
I had a fight with a judder bar (speed bump or whatever you call them) on a down hill driveway. It won...
Apparently I looked like I was doing a stunt double or something. I was walking down the driveway to the entrance of the rest home where I was on clinical placement and lost sense of my leg and tripped over the judder bar and fell down the bank thing. Lost consciousness for a minute or so. Apparently I was not keen to go to hospital but the RN who was checking me over decided it was necessary. I spent more than the minimum observation time because I was still pretty out of it 4 hours later so I was told. My dr and nurse were absolutely lovely though, it makes being in hospital so much nicer when you are treated well. I have holes in my very expensive clinical trousers, plenty of bruises and a few scrapes, concussion and apparently fractured the distal styloid process of the radius on my dominant hand.
Now the dr did say that she thought she could see 2 cracks in it so I'm hoping that when I go to my fracture clinic appointment that they will say it was all a mistake and not fractured afterall-I can always hope right?

I got rung up by the Occupational Therapist yesterday, she is concerned because I have concussion symptoms and am not taking time off. I dont have time to just now because I have a presentation to do on Monday etc, but I am going to have to monitor how I'm feeling and might just have to do as I'm told. She made some good points that if I push through things now and dont let my brain heal that I will make things worse and wont be able to do anything and be out of action longer. I am taking it a bit easy this weekend hoping that will be enough...

Symptoms...

So "one of my numerous falls" last week has created additional, well I suppose I call them 'additional question marks'. They are things I'm not too sure if I should be concerned about or whether just to wait for them to get better and go away...

I fell down the hard med library stairs because silly me let someone else use the handrail. I am starting to wonder if I am ever going to learn or if I am just going to continue doing this till well till I cant do stairs anymore.

I have an amazing bruise over my ischial tuberosity, looks just like I have drawn with purple and black vivid on myself, I haven't seen such an intense colour in a bruise for a very long time-what a shame its in a place I cant show it off. Down side is, I am having a hard time sitting, walking, turning over in bed and bending down to do things, stretching and pressure are big no no's and creating their own set of problems.

And the next thing is rather disconcerting (and embarrassing too)...everytime I have been sitting down and go to get up, I feel like I am all wet, you know like I have wet my pants or something! Honestly I haven't, but it feels horrible and I have to keep checking to make sure it's not real as it feels so weird. I'm not sure what to do about this if anything, I guess it will come right, its signs of nerve involvement of some kind I suspect but whether its something I need to get checked out, I have no idea!

Things are certainly fun at the moment and thats for real.

Balance for sale?

Anybody know where I can buy some balance (well more to the point some good balance)?
I have 3 weeks to improve my balance before my next placement so I need some fast remedy!

I had the unfortunate luck to slip down the steps getting into the pool on Thursday and then after, when we were putting the equipment away, I slipped in some water by the pool side. Now after the first slip into the pool and I had surfaced and recovered from all the water I was choking on, my clinical tutor asked if I was ok and if I slipped because of my foot and I answered yes. She said she knew about rsd when I asked her awhile back so I thought everything was fine.

On Friday I get an email from my paper coordinator at university saying that she had received an email from the clinical tutor saying that she was concerned that I was unwell and wasn’t sure why I might fall.
And then that it might be a good thing to forewarn my next clinical tutor in my next placement that "I am at risk of falling".

Give me a break, all I did was slip in some puddles of water and slip on the step into the pool and she even asked me if it was my foot-she "wasn't sure why I might fall?" I thought she said she knew about rsd, obviously not..

Anyway now I need to think of a way of improving my balance enough in the next three weeks that I wont be "at risk of falling" I don't think my next clinical tutor will be very happy if I have to tell them that, its neuro-rehabilitation and I am supposed to be able to support other people at risk of falling, I'll be pretty useless if I'm the potential hazard lol.

The funny thing about it all was one of the guys on placement with me asked afterwards "what happened, its not usual to fall like that is it?" and my friend who knows me, said "no, its usually once a day not twice" I had to laugh, I guess its only the truth that I'm a potential hazard but I really need to do something about it before I or someone else gets really hurt!