Scooting Towards Rock Bottom

During the initial consultation with my regular orthopedic surgeon, they did not see anything broken on the newest X ray, or any signs a bone gives that it was recently healing from a break. I was told that it was a very bad sprain that can take anywhere from six to nine weeks to recover from, and possibly longer. EDS makes me heal more slowly and recover at a much slower pace than the typical medical timelines. I was given a smaller boot due to not being able to even lift my right leg to take a step with the massive and heavy thing strapped to it.

I had also been given crutches at the emergency orthopedic clinic, but they were causing my shoulders to dislocate. I watched a few videos on how to properly use the crutches and it did not help. Where my arm meets my shoulder joint, the collarbone meets up there too and does something funky, meeting up with the joint at the wrong location. This causes me to have very pronounced collarbones while also having my shoulders not properly aligned. The left shoulder has a minor tear not worth surgery, so it is much weaker than the right as well. The doctor went ahead and wrote me a prescription for a kneeling scooter like assistance device to be able to wheel around on and not rely on my very unstable arms and shoulders to hold me up.

As soon as we picked up the scooter, I instantly felt more capable. The intense pain in the top half of my body was instantly relieved and allowed to rest. However, my ankle, foot, and even my toes were in extremely intense pain still and showing no improvement. I had to keep myself taped up daily. Across the bottom of my foot, around the back of the heel, down the outside edge of the foot, and across the top of my foot just below my toes. It was the only configuration that kept me from feeling like red hot pokers stabbing straight through the bottom of my foot.

More time passed and it was now two weeks post injury when I was able to go back and check in with my ortho again. Yet AGAIN more X rays, thankfully a different tech this time, but still nothing showing up on the imaging to suggest bone damage done. They attempted to request an MRI approval from my insurance, but it was denied. My insurance insisted I attend two weeks of physical therapy first to see if that would fix it before they would approve. This was despite the fact I could not walk whatsoever still at the two week mark with little change in pain levels…

I then went right downstairs to their personal PT clinic and signed up for the first intake appointment available with my previous therapist. The soonest appointment was still seven days out… so more waiting before I could even begin the required test my insurance insisted on. Physical therapy typically has a very set amount of visits per year that your insurance will cover. Mine says I get 24 therapy visits a year. I have always found it incredibly harsh of insurance because that 24 appointment allotment includes occupational therapy, speech therapy, and physical therapy. If you needed all three post car wreck or something else horrible, you would get about eight appointments of each. They like to do one to two appointments a week with those types of things, so you are looking at four to six weeks of therapy tops for multiple therapies stacked.

I have always tried to use my PT allotment very sparingly due to never knowing when my next injury will be or how long my recovery window will truly be. Being forced to use four appointments up out of my total was very upsetting to me. I was still assuming I would have a hip surgery that year needing 12 to 16 visits at least, but more therapy could be very likely beyond that typical timeline… And I REALLY want to be able to walk as pain free as possible. Of course, insurance was not going to refund or give me back the four visits they required me to do that were NOT requested by the doctor, because they are just evil like that.

My physical therapist was very kind and extremely accommodating, however he had to go through the motions as well to treat me as a recovering major sprain. We kept it beyond simple but I was still dying for days after each visit. By the third visit, I was worse than I had started out and I flat out refused to come in for the fourth and demanded an MRI ASAP. Due to waiting for PT intake, this was about five weeks post injury date at this time.

I was now beyond depressed. To say I had dissociated the weeks away at that point would be an understatement. My mental health was so bad BEFORE the injury that post injury I was a walking shell of a person and that only degraded further and further the longer I went on being unable to walk. It is an extremely blurry time in my memory and I only cope further by refusing to process past emotions once realized. Having to work through painful memories makes it feel like I am reliving it all over again, so I do my best to not pry too hard at the fuzzy parts of my brain. I am not able to even accurately count the amount of existential crisis moments I had in total last year, but at least a handful were during this time of intense pain and incredible struggle.

I fully lost the ability to function in most capacities. I was getting so confused and having constant panic attacks regarding my social life and my ability to communicate grew weaker and weaker too. I ended up not trusting myself for a bit and had to quit everything. I had already stepped back from traditional social media way back before COVID, however I now had to turn off all Discord and Twitch notifications. I lost myself and I could not trust my thoughts or actions any further.

I attempted to just be a lurky turkey on Twitch a few times (watching but not talking) for about a week, but with the super exciting live chat in communities I love, I would end up feeling like I was missing out. I would want to contribute to the conversation or wish to comment on the topic, but the second the thought would even cross my mind my heart would race. My hands would be drenched in sweat within a few seconds and my stomach would suddenly be in my throat. Just the THOUGHT of speaking triggered anxiety attacks. I maybe tried a few more times to speak or type in chats and each time it would take a full 20 to 30 minutes just to calm down and not feel like I was going to pass out from my heart beating out of my chest.

The situation of my circumstances was so far out of my control I felt beyond helpless. I had a couple friends attempt to reach out, noticing my silence. Those are some of the brightest moments I can remember during that period. The sweetness and kindness I felt in those moments were like an oasis in the desert. My childhood friend who lives in Illinois ended up buying me the entire Fourth Wing book series and I can easily say, that series helped save my life and mentally survive. I feel like I was a horrible support back. I feel like I failed everyone in the past year, including myself. I could not bring myself to be negative any longer, it seemed like I had nothing good to say so I just stopped saying anything. I cannot stand the thought that I have hurt someone or let someone down. My biggest fear in life is disappointment. This past year I have only felt completely worthless and the biggest burden to anyone who is unlucky enough to know me.

I do not know who I am or want to be anymore. I have spent a full year grieving a life that I imagined I would live, maybe working with animals or in a museum or library. It was the deep depression and grief that finally forced me to seek help.

Each day had become a battle for survival. However, my horrible insurance does not cover much and only provided me with the worst and worse options for mental health care. It does not help that Oklahoma has a massive doctor shortage because smart doctors do not live here if they do not have to! I ended up with my only option left which was to accept the free state mental health clinic as my treatment location. My thought and hope was at least the therapists must have seen and heard the worst of the worst, plus any actual GOOD (typically super expensive cash only) doctors use that place as a way to rotate through and gain further experience with cases they would not normally see in their private practice. I really needed any help I could receive as I was very much at my lowest low.