The Beginning

When the going gets tough... sometimes it gets really tough..

    To get a good picture of my story, I’m going to start at the beginning… the very beginning of when pain consumed a big part of my life. I was trying out for my high school volleyball team in 2007. Our coach had us start off with a nice long warm up run. I was doing great, a little slow, but I was keeping up. Nearing the end of my run, I heard a nice loud pop in my hip and all I remember is waking up on the ground in front of my high school. I had some friends around me and the school nurse. My mom was there to pick me up and after a few scans and doctors, it was determined that I had torn the growth plate in my hip and that it would heal; but it would still take a while.

    Pain was still pretty sensitive in my hip after a few months. I was seen by many specialists including sports medicine and osteopaths. Many different things were tried and tested, but pain was still a part of my day. I had decided to take it easy with sports and just be physically active elsewhere. Over the next few years, pain started to affect my low back, I tried Physical Therapy, Massage Therapy, Muscle Stimulation (Tens units), MRI’s, Chiropractic care, Acupuncture, Cupping, Creams for inflammation, walking regularly, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Advil, higher dose + prescription steroids, and the list keeps going.. I felt like I had tried everything. I was exhausted and still in pain.

    In college I had just mentally said, well, I’ve got back pain and I’ll take medicine to combat severe pain, but other than that, I’m about out of options… I had started up playing volleyball again, but I took things really easy and had days where playing made me really sore and in pain the next day, so I took a break and then a few days later would go back and play. And that’s where my pain sat, uncomfortable for a while.

Pregnancy

    But life kept moving, I got married, graduated college, got a big kid job, moved around and the pain just stayed at a somewhat manageable state for a while. Things really started to change when I got pregnant with my daughter in 2015. As normal in some pregnancies, things just hurt all the time.. my body was sore, specifically my low back; my muscles and ligaments were unstable. I used Tylenol and prenatal massages that helped temporarily relieve some pain. After having my daughter, I was suggested to try Trigger Point Injections for pain. I was given 2-3 doses of those and my pain had completely subsided. Gone. I was shocked that I didn’t have to think about pain.

    Three years later I got pregnant with our son. Pain came back in full force. I thought, “just make it through the birth and I’ll have the trigger point injections again and I’ll be good.” Shortly after my son’s birth, I went in again for trigger point injections. Nothing. No pain relief. I was so bummed. This was the one thing that had worked before and it didn’t this time. And this round of pain was far worse than my pain had been over the past few years. I was given the option to do an epidural steroid injection. A minor procedure done under x-ray to inject a strong dose directly into the pain infected area in my back. I was willing to try anything at this point. But it only worked for a couple hours. Pain was clearly getting worse and nothing was taking the edge off.

    I felt stuck. I had a newborn and a 3 year old, Jared was trying to juggle working self-employed, taking care of me, and helping with children full-time; we didn’t know what to try at this point… but things as they were currently, were not working. My osteopath was still avidly trying to help me find a solution to pain at this point. We were given suggestions to go see an Orthopedic Doctor, but our insurance at the time didn’t cover any cost, and they wouldn’t take self-pay patients, period. Another dead end. And at this point my pain level was so high that I would have spasms and have to lay on the floor for an hour or so for the spasms to stop. Things were not at a manageable state, and with two small children to take care of, I had to figure out something.

The Neurosurgeon

    Because of the onset of new symptoms and spasms, my osteopath gave the suggestion of doing another MRI. I agreed. The MRI gave a little more clarity and showed that I had 3 herniated discs in my low back. Seeing an osteopath at the time wasn’t going to give me the help I needed. We were given the suggestion to see a Neurosurgeon. I was a little surprised at first because I thought, “Neurosurgeon?? That sounds so specialized and scary..” But we knew that this would hopefully give answers of what we could try next. We were given a suggestion of which Neurosurgeon to try and schedule with. We were able to get in, the appointment wouldn’t be for 3 weeks, so we waited.

    Our appointment for the Neurosurgeon was Monday, October 26th, 2020. My pain was so bad at this point, Jared pushed me in a wheelchair to my appointment because walking was painful. The Doctor came in and pulled up my MRI scans and said, “ok I can get you in for surgery this Thursday” (3 days from then). My mind immediately started spinning. SURGERY? I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting.. and after having tried so many things… this naturally seemed like the next step. He went over our options and how many things I had already tried that didn’t work. Surgery was the next step.

    Thursday, October 29th, 2020 was my scheduled surgery date. Because we were knee deep with Covid-19, Jared was not allowed to take me into the hospital for anything. He dropped me off at the door with a nurse, and they wheeled me in for pre-op. I was super nervous, because not only was I hoping that this surgery would go smoothly, but I had no personal support person there with me. Tough. I had a hemi-laminectomy and a discectomy surgery. The Doctor had mentioned in his notes that there was a lot of debris around my spine from the one disc that he repaired, that he had to clear the area 3 times. Waking up from surgery, that jabbing sharpie marker I felt in my low back was GONE. I had other pain, but it wasn’t the stabbing spasm pain I had had for so long. I cried happy tears because I had finally gotten relief of this pain.

Recovery

    Recovery was tough. I was instructed to stay mostly horizontal for 6 weeks. This was rough on EVERYONE in our family. Jared, kids, extended family, me; we all struggled with this, but we knew at the time this was the best chance I had at a pain free back. I iced a lot, got really into audio books and tried to be diligent in staying down. 6 weeks passed and I felt so great. Pain was gone and I was starting Physical Therapy to get mobility back and things were looking pretty good. I was able to move and lift. I was super disciplined in my stretches and exercises because I truly wanted this to work to its fullest. And it did! For a time… About 5 months post surgery, I was still very active, exercising, playing with my children, and then pain hit fast and hard. I felt spasms coming again and I was so frustrated.

April 2021

    I called my neurosurgeon office and talked with his surgical nurse. I was advised that because I had just had surgery, that I should schedule an MRI. Scheduled the MRI and got a call with the results that it was an inflamed nerve that had been pinched from the discs for so long, and that my options were to do oral steroids to take down inflammation in the nerve, or a nerve repair surgery. Neither sounded appealing. I was sad and frustrated. Again. I made the choice to pray and see if there was any solution I had missed or help I could use for pain relief. I got an immediate impression to change what I was eating.

    I didn’t even know where to begin because I thought I was eating fairly healthy. But I wanted to drastically change everything on my meal plates to give my body the best chance at healing. I gave myself 2 weeks. Two weeks to see if this would even make an impact on my pain, because if it didn’t, I wasn’t going to sacrifice my “yummy food” for nothing!

    FIVE DAYS went by and I was completely out of pain. I was astounded. I couldn’t believe it. So to prove a point, I kept up the eating habits and continually improving what I was eating and learning about food. And my body continued to improve and feel so good that I didn’t want to stop and go back to my original way of eating.

    I continued modifying and improving my way of eating. I am now 1 year and 2 months into my new lifestyle and my health has never been better. There are still curveballs and things are still improving, but I feel great.