I’ve made over a 100 posts and had yet to ever post here. It's long but here it goes, my CRPS II life as I know it.

When I was a young girl I slipped on some outdoor metal & concrete steps and a few days later experienced my first electric zingers of a bulging disc. Before my back surgery in 2004 I had seen and would get relief from chiropractors, but never saw a medical doctor when episodes arose.

On July 4, 2004 my mother passed away from a five year battle with breast cancer. My being only 36, an only child, my mother and I very close and my last living parent, this was a devastating loss for me. I was simultaneously going through a divorce. I have three children ages (at that time) 2, 11 & 15. My mother lived in West Texas and me in Colorado. 19 road trips to see her the year prior, and being with her for nearly a year up until her death, times were hard to say the least. After her death, I went back to Colo. bought a home, and back to TX I went to sell her home. While packing up the home she had lived in for 20 years, I started to go for runs in the mornings to try and burn off stress and the weight I had gain from my pregnancy a couple of years earlier, not to mention high cal road food for nearly a year too.

I started to have a nagging lower back ache. As each day passed it got so bad, I thought wow, this is really the most severe it’s ever been. I am out of state and put off an ER visit as long as possible. While at the ER the doc takes an x-ray, reads it, and comes to get me to show me the x-ray. He says “were you in a car accident?” I’m like nooooo. He tells me I have a very ruptured disc that is compressing my spine by 70 some odd percent and that I need ER Surgery, like right then. I say whoa doc, um.. I’m from out of state and I’m packing up my mom’s house, and well, yeah that’s not happening right this minute.

On December 4, 2004 I went in for an L5-S1 discectomy with an anticipated hospital stay of 3 days and a full recover in one year’s time. I woke up from surgery screaming in pain. Pain in my foot. My right foot could not tolerate even a sheet. My ankle felt shattered. I couldn’t move from the waist down for a week. I also could not lift my head after surgery for a week because the doc nicked my dura, and were afraid of a massive headache they couldn’t control. With this new condition, I really struggled to be a single parent of three, the youngest only two years old.

After a week, I slowly started to learn to walk again. The feeling running down my calf into my foot never came back. The pain I awoke from surgery did subside somewhat over the years, thank God! But today I have issues of spread, and tremors, and such. My limbs and fingers/toes get ICE cold. They turn all colors of the rainbow too.

Spread… over nearly ten years it has gone from right to left leg, then sporadically in my torso, and now very well into my arms and hands, neck and shoulders. Vision issues, intestinal issues, sensory (sound can be the worst) issues, joint problems.. if I kept going I would only sound like a hypochondriac. However all very real.

The upswing to my story is that I fell in love with a longtime friend, and it took five years of asking and I think my testing him, for me to say yes. I really wanted to be sure he knew what he was getting into. And much to my relief he is on board 100%. He waited me out and I am so happy for it. He gets it as much as anyone can who doesn’t have this. Life is funny with all it offers. We totally work around all things CRPS II. We keep a sense of humor.

When I first was Dx, three months after surgery, there was not hardly anything on the web about CRPS. Years later I was grateful to find this site. I am often asked by professionals if I have a support group, and well, I always reference this site. I always find solace here.