From wreck to success - part 1

Almost 10 years ago, I was carried out to an ambulance in a sheet by four firemen, unable to move and with excruciating pain in my entire body.

The condition had escalated fast, mild back ache in the morning got rapidly worse despite ibuprofen and in a few hours, I got completely stuck, unable to move, leaning against a wall at work. Ambulance was called and relief came when a nurse administered a Morphine injection.

Blood sample came back: very high levels of C-reactive protein - a marker of inflammation.

There had been warnings signs, maybe for years, maybe even since childhood. Powerful headaches on sunny days, lumbago during stressful periods, occasional ulcers in my mouth and nose, body aches and days without energy and excessive sleepiness. But nothing really consistent, and I had sometimes been overexerting myself, I had not always eaten well, life is just stressful with work and children, and this happens to everyone, I reasoned. To be a competitive athlete was not on the map or even in my imagination.

About a year before my collapse, I had started to get back and hip pain, or more correctly, the pain had been there on and off for years, but it reached a level that bothered me. I would limp after sitting still, people noticed. I thought maybe my hips were worn out; I saw a specialist. X-rays said my bone structure was fine, MRI came back with a mysterious possible tear in a muscle, but there is no treatment for that, and it could not explain my symptoms.

I am a geologist, and this picture is of me at work. It is captured a few weeks before the collapse and I was feeling sick that day. 

Pain increased and I went back, insisting that something was wrong. I mentioned that now my knees were also painful, they felt like they had popcorn in and around the kneecap. The specialist told me I was perfectly all right and that he could do nothing for me. This was less than a week before the collapse.

It had been a tough year (or few years), extremely stressful at work, lack of sleep, UTI's, colds, two root canals and a house move. Some of it at the same time. I loved my job as a geologist, and in ten years at my workplace, I had never taken a sick day.

After resting at hospital and given anti-inflammatory medication I was good enough to go home. There was no clear diagnosis. I could walk, but barely, and I started to plan for a possible life with restricted physical ability. I remember thinking I needed to buy one of those small backpack type handbags, so I would have both hand free to hold on to a walker. My participation in the annual MS150 fundraising bike ride was cancelled, and so was my field trip to west Texas. My continued work was in question, especially offshore work.

I accepted it, I was 55 and my life had been quite fulfilling, it is what it is. Little did I know that I will recover and eventually be able to do more than before the diagnosis. Hold on for part 2.