I wished I could wake up from the nightmare…only I wasn’t asleep

(* This was written in November, 2023 but is being published in April 2024)

As I begin to write this, it’s the anniversary of a day I wish I could forget. Better yet, one I wish had never happened. But it did.

I don’t know if I’ll finish writing this today; I rather doubt it. It’s a lot. Not a lot to write, necessarily, but a lot to relive. A lot to face. And although my intention is to look at some of the good that’s come from it, I can’t do that without going to places I’d really rather never visit again.

A year ago from today, I was just settling back into life in Calgary. Only a couple of months earlier, I had moved from my beloved England to Ontario to stay with a dear friend who was terminally ill and needed help. We thought he had a year, maybe two. But almost as soon as I arrived, an unexpected health crisis erupted and he died.

We had one lovely evening together. And he was gone.

I hadn’t yet begun to process my grief about packing up my life in England when suddenly, I had also lost a dear friend of 35 years. And had to scramble to find somewhere else to live ASAP. A friend in Calgary, we’ll call him “Mike”, opened his home to me. I headed 2,000 miles west to Alberta where I grew up. I felt nothing short of shell shocked and it showed. Mike urged me to take a few weeks and rest before sorting out work.

I did need a lot of rest. Not just from the recent events that landed me at his home but from other turmoil over a few years. For quite some time, I had been pleading with the Universe. “I need a break!” I’d also been saying I needed “a really long period of time where I could do absolutely nothing!”

Be Careful What You Wish For

Both wishes were about to be granted. The Universe is good like that. It’ll give you exactly what you ask for when you dump enough emotional energy into your request, and give it time to figure out how to deliver it … which brings me to the anniversary I do not want. It would take a few months before I realised that what had happened was exactly what I’d said I wanted. And I’ve had plenty of time to regret my choice of words.

A year ago today, it was bright and sunny. Two days prior, Mike had left for a lengthy holiday in Scotland. We’d had a foot of snow and on a short walk down the road to check the mail, I slipped on black ice. I heard a loud “crack!” as I landed on the concrete sidewalk.

Pain tore through my leg. I could see peaks and valleys where my kneecap should have been. On the other side of the street and three houses down, two people were arguing about something and ignoring my screams for help. A few cars drove by. It was a quiet, residential street. They had to have seen me. Terrified, I lay on the cold, wet sidewalk for ages, shouting for help and wondering how long I’d be there. Finally, a man came to my aid.

I had ripped the quadriceps right off the bone and I’d done a spectacular job of rearranging pieces of my patella. I required emergency surgery to repair the damage. (Photos and more info)

Well, I’d got the “break” I’d said I wanted. Oops. And I was about to get that “long period of time where I could do absolutely nothing.” I should have been much more specific. I meant, “…I could do whatever I wanted.”

I hadn’t recovered from the grief, shock and emotional distress from leaving England, then losing my dear friend before finding myself in a bedroom in Mike’s basement in Calgary. Suddenly, I would also have to adjust to another new and very different reality.

Well, I’d asked for that, too. Several months earlier, in February 2022 I was excited about my upcoming birthday. As a numerologist, I knew it would be the start of my Personal Year 5, which is all about change. I’d been stuck for several years in various ways, and for some time I’d been telling the Universe, “Bring it on!” Yes, I really said that. A lot. What was I thinking?

As a writer and as someone who has been known to cast a potent spell or two since the mid-’90s, I know the incredible power of words and the need for considering possible consequences to the ones we choose to use. But I wasn’t paying attention. And it would cost me dearly.

However, along with a hefty purchase price, there would also be equally hefty gifts. But it would take a while to see them.

The Price

I don’t want to go on about how physically painful and challenging this has been but it’s at the root of this journey and the fact that a year later, it’s far from over. Especially as a few weeks in, I was blessed (?) with a substantial complication. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

At the beginning of this adventure, I had to wear a heavy, uncomfortable full leg brace 24/7. Thick foam and metal rods kept my leg straight. This unnatural position put a constant strain on my lower back, causing a relentless, gnawing, screaming pain within a day or two. I’m glad I didn’t know at the time, but I would endure this constant pain for the next 3 months. I barely slept because of it and was so exhausted, at times I was reduced to tears.

Within a couple of weeks, I developed allodynia in my injured leg.

Allodynia is defined as “pain due to a stimulus that does not normally provoke pain.” An example would be a light feather touch (that should only produce sensation), causing pain. — National Library of Medicine

The slightest hint of a bedsheet or yoga pants touching the skin on my leg felt like burning sandpaper. I kept the pant leg rolled up to my thigh. I couldn’t sleep for trying to hold the sheet away from my leg. I suffered with this misery for 7 months before it finally began to ease.

I had frequent “electric shock” nerve pains that shot through my leg and foot. And I developed excruciating pain with the slightest movement in my right foot and ankle. My thigh was in the normal position but my foot had twisted outward. No wonder my foot hurt like hell. This only became tolerable a few weeks ago.

That “substantial complication” I mentioned? This collection of odd symptoms resulted in a diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a rare condition that even many doctors know nothing about. It can happen with injury, fracture, trauma, surgery, or nerve damage. I had all five. I had (have) Type 2 (of two), the one you don’t want. It can cause numerous problems in joints and limbs (not necessarily the injured limb). It can even cause problems with internal organs, including heart trouble.

Said to be the most painful condition we can have, it’s called the Suicide Disease because it’s so painful, it has driven some people to take their own lives. And apparently, CRPS can become permanent. (Watch Take Care of Maya on Netflix for a shocking documentary about a little girl with CRPS)

The Challenges

Once I got home from hospital and into the basement (sliding carefully down the steps on my backside), I was stuck there. Mike would be in Scotland for a while and I couldn’t get up the stairs by myself.

Thankfully, there was a small kitchen of sorts in the basement with a fridge, a bar sink, and a single-element induction cooker. A friend came once a week to be there when my groceries were delivered and bring them downstairs. She would do a load of laundry and a few other things so I could manage by myself for the week. (Side note: over the next few months, she took advantage of my vulnerability and gradually showed me she was a bully. Nasty insults, hurtful comments, displays of temper etc. till I finally decided I didn’t care how much physical pain it caused me to do these things for myself, I would never ask her for another thing. PS — I don’t see her anymore.)

On my first night out of hospital, I was filled with random fears that would plague me for weeks to come. Trapped downstairs and alone for days at a time, I couldn’t help but wonder, what if there’s a fire upstairs and no one can get to me? What if someone breaks in? What if what if what if?

I hadn’t been safe simply walking down the street on a sunny autumn afternoon. How on earth could I feel safe alone in that house, barely able to hobble to the loo with a walker? I’ve always been fiercely independent. The shock and fallout of my injury had left me terrified for my safety and more vulnerable than I ever remember being in my entire life.

And there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

Generally a positive person, I did my best to stay focused on healing and getting my life back. I figured 3, maybe 4 months at most, and I’d be tearing up and down the stairs and going for walks again. But the days dragged, and then the weeks — and months — without much improvement. Sure, the incision was healing, but with CRPS, I had more pain and little progress. I slid into a depression that I did not want to acknowledge.

It didn’t help that I was stuck in the basement without a window. I couldn’t even see the seasons changing from autumn, to winter, to spring. It was like being frozen in time, trapped in a terrible blur of physical pain and restriction. I had no visitors apart from the person who helped with my weekly grocery delivery and laundry. (She had the door code but I couldn’t get up the stairs to let anyone else in).

Even my host was gone more than he was home. He rarely came down to even offer a brief hello. With all that had happened in the previous months, I had no reserves to deal with my situation. And there was no “end date.”

As I think back on those early days and weeks, instantly I’m flooded with dread. I’m thrown back into the complete and utter helplessness that threatened to swallow me whole. I remember shuffling around that bloody basement with my walker, trapped by pain. I was alone and desperately miserable, with no idea when the nightmare would end. Damn these tears.

There were practical challenges, too. I needed two hands for the walker. How would I carry a drink or a plate of food from the bar/kitchen area to the couch where I could sit? Trying to carry anything at all from one place to another was difficult unless it fit easily into a bag. Many things didn’t. Just getting myself from one place to another was painful and took so, so long. Everything was exhausting.

I couldn’t even change my own knickers for six weeks. I couldn’t have a bath for six months. Even my attempts at sponge bathing presented challenges. And I’m still not steady enough on my feet for a shower.

Little things in our day-to-day movements and tasks that we take for granted had become monumental obstacles to overcome. Cleaning my bathtub (very recently), accessing my lower cupboards (still a struggle), vacuuming while using a walker (a nightmare), carrying a hot drink to a comfy chair (finally!), wiping up a spill on the floor (oh, dear) …

The Gifts

At the beginning of this experience, I couldn’t have begun to imagine what lay ahead. Thank heaven for small mercies. But one thing I soon learned, I would revisit a decades-long lesson about patience. I first discovered the need for it as a divorced teen mum. Please please please give me patience! I begged. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that. I received numerous opportunities to practice that lesson throughout my turbulent life.

I have to say, the Universe has a sense of humour. Eventually, I became a homeopath and had a thriving practice with “lots of patients.”

Anyway, last year I would get another big lesson in the other kind of patience. If I had any hope of getting through this healing journey without coming apart, I was going to have to stop wishing it away. I had to remember all those mindfulness classes I’d taught and accept each moment as it came.

And I had to trust that in time, I would be well and resume normal activities. I tried to do Qi Gong healing on myself but I was so sleep-deprived, I had trouble focusing. I resorted to simply talking to my body — admittedly, tearfully. I hoped it wasn’t angry with me for having injured it. I prayed it would forgive me and let me heal.

It helped that six months in, I moved to a place of my own. At least now I can see outside, even if I’m still not terribly mobile. It was only a couple of months ago that I was finally able to take out the rubbish. And recently, I discovered that on a good day I can get to the supermarket across the street. On one particularly excellent day, I actually walked a whole mile! But for the past 2 weeks, I’ve been having a CRPS relapse and have enough trouble hobbling to the loo.

This has been an interesting time of observation, watching myself move through the angst, the pain, the challenges to stay positive and hopeful, to dig myself out of depression and try to get back on an even keel. I’ve been forced to remember many valuable, hard-won lessons, like facing fear, or letting go of negative thoughts and deliberately choosing better ones.

I always knew I was adaptable, but I’ve had an “up close and personal” look at just how adaptable I am. As if 50 house moves (yes, really) wouldn’t do it, or six divorces or various other big changes that required me to shift direction in a hurry. I saw it in ways I’ve never had to experience until now.

As it turned out, it would be almost 4 months before I got rid of the leg brace. Never mind being ready to run up and down stairs and go for walks by then, as I thought I’d be doing. I was nowhere near where I needed to be. I still can’t do those things.

The day I got the brace off, my leg only bent to 75°. Full flexion is 135°. Eight months later, I’m only at 115° on a good day. I’m still working on strength and range of motion. And stairs? I’ve only recently started to manage them to some extent (with my cane and a sturdy railing), but I have a long way to go before it won’t be obvious that I am physically challenged.

A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined it would be 7 months before I ditched the walker. Then another 3 months before I could begin putting the crutches aside in favour of the cane, which I still need. I couldn’t possibly have known I would have to learn how to walk unassisted again, or that I wouldn’t be “there” yet. My knee is still outrageously swollen and warm to the touch. My entire leg is discoloured and bruised, due to CRPS.

My life has been loaded with lessons of overcoming. Of facing obstacles and fighting through them. I’ve been forced to find and develop my inner strength and to become resilient, to know that I can grit my teeth, dig a little deeper, and face whatever ugliness lies before me.

Although a huge part of that is about having the determination to see things through to the end, I’ve also learned to accept “what is.” It won’t always go my way. This recovery has certainly reminded me of that.

For many years, I’ve chosen to focus more on gratitude for the blessings in my life than to think about what isn’t as I’d like it to be. At the end of the day, this is what has pulled me through the past year. This is what helped me through those horrible, painful months.

With CRPS, it’s often one baby step forward and three giant steps backward. So far, I do creep forward again. I pray I’ll be one of the lucky ones who recover from it. My progress may be slow, but it is still progress. Sure, I wish I could go dancing. I wish I could go for a brisk walk. Even a leisurely one would be a dream come true. I’d love to zip up and down the stairs again. I’m still hopeful for a full recovery, but if this is as good as it gets I will accept it and be grateful to have at least come this far.

It has taken me four days to write this. Diving back into those dark memories has been overwhelming and at times, suffocating. With every glimpse of those awful early months, I slammed the laptop shut. Tears bubbled up as I relived those terrible days, even for just a moment. I didn’t want to face those demons.

But just as I’ve done the rest of my life, I knew I couldn’t let them win. I kept pushing past that fear and faced those rotten bastards. I remembered who I am and that I’m far stronger than they’ll ever be. And just like that, they aren’t so scary anymore.

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