I had an accident a week and a half ago and I am still in a lot of pain mainly in my chest area where I bashed my sternum on the bathtub. I was unable to walk and I crawled my way out of my bedroom and down the hallway vomiting and spitting up mucus. My dad came up the stairs and tried to lift me off of the ground but when my body goes down it is very hard to get me up. Somehow I made it into the bathtub and got the cold water turned on and sat there crying and asking my dad to help me. I don't know what happened but I must have tried to get up and I fell again and hit the bathtub and bashed my chest on the porcelain tub.
My arms were pinned against my body and I could not hold myself up. Between the crying and the pain I did not realize how bad I was but I knew that pain I felt from hitting the tub was not good. Over the last week and a half the pain has gotten worse in my chest and has become deeper and deeper with pain. I hope this heals soon and is not a long term injury like the others. On top of the chest, my left knee has gone out and imaging this week showed that I have osteonecrosis in my left wrist also. Which means it has spread to small joints now. And there is nthing we can do at all.
I have been extremely sad this week trying to piece together some normalcy for me. Nothing in my life is normal anymore. I just take it day by day and I have goals and aspirations but right now I am fighting to save my legs and my ability to walk. I have feared losing my ability to walk for most of my life. I do not know how to explain it but I have had dreams and fears that I will lose my ability to walk. And I hate these premonitions as most of the ideas and scenarios I dream about or have visions of always come true. Well at least they seem to come true. This accident really woke me up and made me realize how important my diet, my workouts, my physical therapy and taking my medications are.
I am new to medications and taking a variety of them has been a very scary process for me. Between my pain doctor Dr. Patel at Integrity Pain and Wellness and my cardiologist at Chandler Cardiology have put me through every test and procedure along with the primary doctor, neurology, naturopath and immunology doctors. We had to rule out every illness known to man before I could get a diagnosis which has been Parkinson's Disease.
It had been mentioned to me about five years ago when we narrowed my illness down to neurological and autoimmune. I have been fighting this mystery illness my entire life. It just got worse as I got older. As well as it manifested as so many other illnesses that I have been diagnosed with twenty two (22) illnesses all from a bad immune system, enlarged thymus gland and tumors and masses growing out of control in my body.
I have done vitamin ivs, massage therapy, Pilates physical therapy, yoga therapy, acupuncture, fasting, eating, puking, juicing, force feeding myself and crying and laughing, smiling, yelling, fighting, I have done it all. And my body still wins. However, thirty seven years of trial and error I have found a good routine that is working. I am just in recovery mode from running away to San Diego and losing the ability to walk the day I came home. I just wish I could afford my vitamin ivs and acupuncture again. They made me feel the best and I could work when I could get ivs weekly but I have been told that I need to eat real food. It is way easier to just get an iv but I am eating and my body is digesting food for the first time in my entire life!
I am exhausted and tired and frustrated with my body but all I can do is try to get out of the house, rest as much as possible, take my physical therapy outside and swallow twenty pills a day. Each morning I am waking up feeling better and better so I know I am on the mend from my episode and injury.
I have been wanting to put more time into the website and blogs so I am glad that I can sit here and write this. Thank you for listening to my story and reading what I am writing. I have always had a passion for journalism and writing and went to Arizona State University where I studied every subject I loved. I started off to be a Doctor but then I got sucked back into journalism and broadcasting and worked in the Sports and Entertainment industry for my entire career. I got sicker and sicker as I got older. And the stress piled on over the years and my body just could not keep up anymore.
I miss my businesses and work, I miss my career, I miss co-workers and friends and happy hours. I really do miss events and weddings but the stress can not be tolerated anymore and I have had to just sit here in the house resting since March. This entire year of 2018 has been horrendous but it is the year that has changed my life. It is the year I had to move back home with my parents, walked away from a Catering Business I started, which was my dream come true, and had to figure out what was wrong with me. My entire life I have never been properly diagnosed but 2018 got me there. The enlarged thymus gland could be the entire dilemma.
I am waiting on my Insurance to approve for me to go to the Barrow's Neurological Parkinson's institute but the primary doctor I switched to has yet to do a peer review with the insurance company so I had a heated conversation with them on Thursday and have not heard back at all. Banner Maricopa has hindered my care and I have had to fight with them before to even get treated like a human. The doctor I saw there does not want to do his job. I find that these Doctors are lazy. I would say almost every doctor I have had just collects a paycheck and does not want to physically do anything. I will save that for another blog. However, Doctors being lazy and not wanting to do a peer to peer with the insurance company are not needed in my life I need a primary that will fight for me. I am going to die under the care of primary doctors. That is why I take my care into my own hands and maintain my relationship with my pain doctor. He is the only doctor fighting for me.
I am most likely going to have to switch primaries to my pain doctors office to actually get the care that I need. I was just waiting to see if Banner Maricopa would do the peer review for Barrows to be approved but I doubt they even started it. So Monday I will be on top of this. That is always how it has to be. I have to fight for my own health care. These doctors write me off and do nothing to help me. I am a lost cause to them however, I fight. I fight to get an answer and I fight to get a doctor who truly cares about me and so far Integrity Pain and Wellness is the only medical practice in Arizona who has cared about me and wants to help me so I will move my primary to them. I know in my heart I have to. I do not have time to deal with doctors and offices that can not help their chronically ill patients.
Being chronically ill is not my choice. I have not done this to myself as some of you have put into your mind, I am trying to find ways to enjoy what time I have left while not harming my body because that does it on its own.
I have an enlarged thymus gland and that could be the root of the cause of my body failing. I am lucky that I can call the endocrinologist on Monday and go see her to determine what further testing we can do to treat it. The thymus gland can cause Parkinson's disease. I think we may have found the source of my failing body. God I would be so relieved if we finally have the answer.
Sarah Anne
