I thought I would start from the beginning and give a chance to catch up to where we are now.
August 22, 2007. We were hauling a load from Hawthorne California to Houston Tx and had stopped to get fuel in Arizona. Plan was he would fuel and hit the sleeper and Id take over. Well he had deisel fuel on the bottom of his shoes and when he went to climb into the truck his foot slipped and went to the ground turning it under itself. He was hurt but we had no idea just how much. I had drove for a couple of hours when he woke up and his ankle was really hurting. I looked at it and it was swollen up like a softball on the side of his ankle. I thought he had broken it so we went to the hospital. No broken bones but had a small tear in the lateral ligament so he pretty much had a severe sprain. Doctor ordered him off for a week and to see his family doctor. So I delivered the load in Houston and we went home. We had been home about a week and his foot still wasnt any better. It hurt, it was swollen and red. I made an appointment with our family doctor and they just figured it would take a little longer to heal. I took off work for another week and when it still wasnt any better we went back to the doctor who recommended that he see a specialist. He couldnt really walk on it, he limped a little, did a lot of hopping on one leg to get around.
I had to go back to work or we wouldnt have jobs, so I went back on the road for a month, all the while he is telling me he is still hurting. So when I came home and saw his ankle and foot I was shocked. It had turned bright red and purple, was swollen and I could see he was really in pain so I took him to the hospital. They didnt know what was going on, but he had an appointment with the specialist that week so they gave him something for pain and we headed home. The next week, we went to the specialist. The experience wasnt good. The doctor didnt see him for more than about 5 minutes, literally, and ordered pain medication and physical therapy for a month. I knew at that point Id have to take a leave of absence because I couldnt run the truck the amount of miles it needed to run. So I stepped out of the truck and stayed home to help him deal with what was going on.
So a mont goes by, he has physical therapy 3 times a week for a month and on the last day he had a bad experience with a very ignorant physical therapist which caused Dennis to have a lot of extra pain, so much pain it made him cry. Dont tell him I told you though, he'll kill me! lol I told him right then I wouldnt make him go there again. I would be cruel if I did. So we go to the specialist again. Mind you this is about 2 months give or take after he was injured. The doctor walks in, says he wants him to have more physical therapy, says to us "Its not CRPS, itll be better in another month". Well that was it. We didnt know what CRPS was at the time, I had barely caught what he said before he walked out of the room. It was obvious that he wasnt interested in figuring out what was wrong with his foot and so I asked work comp to help find a new doctor.
Dr Muldowny, Lafayette La. I have a fondness for him, he was the one who eventually diagnosed Dennis. The previous doctor had done no tests at all. Not even an ex-ray. Dr Muldowny had them done right away. He also had Dennis have a bone scan and an MRI. The bone scan showed a large uptake in calcium in his good leg. He explained that this was normal when people arent able to use both legs, the body automatically starts to move calcium from the inured, unused limb to the good limb, trying to reinforce the bone, making it stronger for the extra use and weight it takes on. The MRI showed intact ligaments and muscle. Meaning that the initial injury had healed. But why then was he still not any better? Dr Muldowny told us he felt it was CRPS or RSD (theyre basically the same but one is more severe due to the time the patient has had it, as I understand), but he wanted to have him do a couple more tests to determin if this is what he had or not.
About 6 months after injury, Dr Muldowny referred us to a Dr he worked with often, a neurosurgeon, Dr Staires, who specializes in pain management. Dr Staires was to perform a "Sympathetic Block" to see if it would help the pain any. The procedure was painful for Dennis, they had problems getting his blood pressure to come back down to a normal range and it caused them to not be able to wake him up fully. I was scared, looking at him laying there, not able to wake up, his blood pressure through the roof. But eventually it came down and he fully woke up. The doctor tested his pain levels, which were almost nothing at all and the temperature in his foot had risen about 15 degrees. RSD makes the affected area lower its temperature. We went home and for almost 3 glorious days Dennis had little to no pain. It was such a relief for him! But eventually the pain came back. We did a follow up with Dr Muldowny who said it looked like Dennis did have RSD but he had to go through the procedure again. a few weeks later he had it done again. This time, they didnt give him as much anesthesia because of the previous blood pressure issue and he woke in the middle of it. This put him in so much pain I could literally him him crying out in the waiting room. When they brought him into recovery, his entire body was shaking, he was moaning, it was hard on him. The pain in his back wore off though and he again, had little pain, with a 30 degree rise in temperature in his foot. It seems impossible for an area to be that cold on the human body without having like, frostbite or something I know, but that is also one of the symptoms of RSD that patients deal with.
Dr Staires and Dr Muldowny both diagnosed Dennis with having RSD. It was time for us to find out what it was since it was something we would be dealing with in the future. I had no idea, none at all, just how much our lives were changing. It was the recommendation of Dr Staires that Dennis should have a spinal cord stimulator implanted. Then he could possibly be free of 50% of his pain. Which isnt 100% but when you live day to day in agony, 50% looks like a gift from God. Here is a video of the procedure being done on someone. Dennis will have nearly the same model in the same spot, but his incisions will be a bit larger and the leads will be in two locations in his spine, not 2 in one area like the video shows so they can stimulate both top and bottom of his foot and ankle. This is when the waiting began.
Hurricane Rita came and just about ruined us. We couldnt get anyone in our family to come help and we couldnt do the work ourselves and so eventually we abandoned our home and moved to Michigan in hopes of having people around to help out. All the while still waiting for work comp to get paperwork pushed through.
Part 2 to follow tomorrow!
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