Originally Posted by (Broken Wings)

Welcome

I do admire your spunk.

I keep on chuggin' for me and my little family.

It's not easy, is it?

I can only live my life, and share because I care about people.

I feel so misunderstood at times, because I do push beyond limits with so many challenges, really, that, at times, I wonder if I'm right to put myself though so much.

I have found much help in alternative methods of treatment. I also need my great doctors, the few I found that is. But once you find the right one, things get easier.

It comes down to God's grace to be able to do as good as I do, although I'm so unworthy.

It's great to get to know you.

You're going to love NT....






QUOTE=andrea puskas;910087]Hello friends, I just found this site and am very grateful to see you all here.
I live now in Daytona Fl. and am a single 60 years old feamle with RSD for 21 years now.

I got RSD in the dark days when there was no one to talk to and all the doctors told you that you were just crazy.

My RSD started from an ankle sprain in 1991. I had the added pleasure of fighting a 16 year Pa. workers comp suit and 7 years for SSD.
You had to do your own homework then too. No one but God had ever heard of RSD and He wasn't happy about it either. No one should have to live thru that kind of condemnation and degradation and torture phsically or mentally.
It was a nightmare. 16 years of workers comp doctors and hearings and lawyers and judges, it was nasty. Not to mention being single and poor.
I lost everything I had ever worked for. My business, cars, house, savings, and next was my pride...they almost beat me down.


Took me 4 years to find a doctor that even heard of RSD. By the time I got to the 58th doctor, Doc Marty, confirming my Pysical Therapist's suspisions, Doc Marty helped me start a new life of this horror. I began going into the hospital for 5 days at a stretch for treatments. I had a 24/5 continuous Lydicaine drip in the spine, epidoral block. Some call it a sympathetic block.
However, after 2 years and 6 blocks and tooooo many drugs, I had no releif from the pain.

The first block did however, take away the huge edema in the right leg. It has never come back. I treated with Dr. Hoosmand in 1997 and he deemed me Systemic RSD. I kinda knew that before I saw him though. I knew it was taking over my left hand and arm by then. We all know our own body and can tell when things are wacked out.

However, it was Hoosmand's name on the dotted line that won my SSD case. He was honest and told me how bad things really had gotten. I had to pay for his care out of my own pocket but it was worth it in the end.
It isn't always what you know but how to handle who you know...
sometimes that might unlock the doors that are crippeling you.
RSDHope helped me to get off of my rear and start living in this RSD world.
They opened the door for me to meet other RSD people, a true blessing.

REMEMBER, you are not only fighting the pain you have to learn and fight The System. It was not a pleasent time, and my friends and family did not know how to deal with the peson that now lived in Andrea's body.
They suffered with denial as much as I did during those times.

I lived in Mars, Pa. at this time and truely thought that martians were taking me in the night and doing these things to me. It was a circus.
Only an RSD person can appriceate the Martian therory......I was really starting to question myself.
However, time has gone by and I've accepted the facts of learning that there is no fix -just treatment and always miracles.

I am a faithfilled person and never stopped praying most importantly.

I owned my own business at the time of my injury and worked Heavy Highway as a truck driver and heavy equipment operator for Pa. Steelworkers building bridges and highways.
I also owned a hair salon and had 5 employees at Love Your Hair. I have been a hairstylist since 1969, owning and operating numerous salons.
I like the open air and am a Chevy Gear Head so got my CDL and started truckin for a living as the salon held its own. I have only been married 4 years of my 60 and have , thru God's grace, been an independent woman,
even now.

I can tell you horror stories all day long, but it only creates more anger sometimes. So as a vetern of RSD I will encourage you to learn about RSD and include your family in that knowledge so they do not suffer too.
Keep faith and know you can live thru this nightmare. Keep your sence of humor and cry when you need to, it helps. You have to find what is left of you and your passions, and continue to Live. It ain't easy but, you can.

I have started support groups from Mars, Pa. to Daytona Fl. to North Pole Alaska spreading the word of RSD. In fact next Sept. I am planning a 10 year reunion with the North Pole folks. I am truckin' there for RSD. Going to fish for salmon in Valdez before it is too late for me. You have to keep living.

I will leave you with this thought tonight: It could be worse.

You could be the boat captain that had to take me parasailing last week. Poor guy, he didn't know what to do with this chunkey crippled old lady with 2 canes trying to walk the plank to get to the boat.
I could see the terror in his face. I explained my limits to him, told him my darkest secret..how much I weighed...and we set a plan. He landed me back on board on my butt like he had done it a hundred times. It was a Blast and the captain is to be commnded. Will post pics soon.

YOU have to keep on living... search thru the doctors, the lawyers and money problems and know there is light at the end of the tunnel if you work at being who you have become and use who you were. I heard Cher say during an interview I saw one time, "If a cock roach can adapt so can I..
I am smarter than a cock roach." I have heald on to that all these years.

There is always an ear and a shoulder for anyone who needs it. Please don't let anger and the System beat you down.
Any mediacal, legal, spiritual, emotional questions, please just ask...
I found my best avenues of treatment thru Alternitive care. Keneisiology, Reflexology, Yoga, suppliments, exersize, and prayers. Keep on truckin".
Thank you all for your efforts and being here.

Sending Peace & LUV to all. Andrea
RSD from Mars with LUV. Lending Unity for Victory.

Originally Posted by andrea puskas

Hello Dear young Elsie,
I am just speachless right now seeing a 22 yr.old having to live this life.
Hurts my heart. And your family..God bless them for love and caring.
This is a family problem as I am sure you know. It is hard for them and they do feel pain for you just a different kind.

I know it doesn't help with the pain but...you have a life line here as opposed to the Dark Ages when NO ONE heard of this horror. Use this to learn, to help yourself stay on top of things, and for healing. Laugh, cry, cuss, but truth is...Yeah, you are practising being OLD. Gotta laugh at it or ya just will cry.

I am new here and so grateful to see eyes being opened and hearts being healed by way of support. It took almost 8 years for me to find anyone who had this JUNK. RSDHope was my first life-line and bless them for their efforts.

I had to move to Fl in mid 90's as I was looseing my home and ability to care for myself and my home. I needed my Mommy.
This is when I learned how to use a computer. Found RSDHope and began going to medical seminar for RSD.
Hoosmand and Schwartz were the top men at the time (still are in my book)
and what a wealth of knowledge I recieved.
That was when my legal ssues really got heavy and I had done my homework so had that info in hand to fight back with the FDA, SS, W/C lawyers and try to help my family understand that Andrea still lives in this body, she is just different.
Swimming and alternative care got me back on my feet and help form Mom and friends pushed me to be more active in the RSD world and my own world. I realized I have to keep my passions going. And what a better place than Sunny Fl. the land of fishing and NASCAR racing.
Doing the race track in a wheel chair was not my dream but got to live it and rose above this disability. I got to ride in Dale Ernharts car doing 3 laps around Daytona track at 150 mph +.....dream come true!.
And caught a Blue Marlin to hang on the wll. What a day at sea that was.

See, this is what hurts my heart. I have lived.
I am old in comparision to you Dear one. I have done things in life people only dream about. I've had a full life before this happened and during.
I just don't know what to tell you.
I can only assure you that I have tears steaming down right now for you, and you are in my prayers.

Please get back to me and share a little of what your life is doing OK?
I will tell you that above all the meds and treatments, use your sence of humor as much as you can. Laugh and dream of the time when your miracle will unfold for you. The endorphines of laughter are so healing. I have a picture of them and use them every chance I get.

That is probably why my closest friends call me Crazy Lady. You become crazy trying to live with this. I have worked at turning it around and making a joke of it and the System with their Quote-Treatments. The frustration of the system is part of the mess and just too great to put alot of time into.

They try to sell us FIX, and too often maintainance is all there is.....
Gotta get moveing and get to church. Give thanks where thanks is due.

Keep faith in as much as this is just temporary. Everything for a reason.
You will be ok and live thru this. God has a plan for you young one.
Beleive these things and trust that time will change and you will move forward in a wonderful direction that you have not even imagined.

By the time ya get to my age you will be Queen of the Bingo. You will be pracised up with your canes and you can out run all the gabby old ladies. lol.
RSD does not kill our Humor sensors; only we can do that.
Much love to you today and very blessed to know you.
Keep truckin Girl, you will get there. Talk again soon.

Peace & LUV, Andrea RSD from MARS with LUV.
Lending Unity for Victory

Originally Posted by ElsieGrant

Thank you very much for your kind words and the friend request!
I don't really laugh anymore because the emotional pain I feel has no where to go but build up inside and any humor I do have tends to get crushed in the weight of the problems I face daily.
Your outlook is so refreshing to me I hope we have the chance to talk again.

Originally Posted by ElsieGrant

With RSD we all have good days and bad days...the fact that on a good day you can still laugh and see humor is something I would like to be able to do more often. At times it feels like I am not allowed to do those things since the people around me take it as an instant sign that I am 'better'. Therefore I think one of the most important things among friends is to be able to be silly and say carefree things but at the same time your pain and struggles are not 'forgotten'. This balance is so very hard to find with people who have never felt intense chronic pain because they don't know what it's like when it never shuts off. So just wanted to let you know that I see good days not necessarily as days with less pain but also as days where worries or stresses may not be the first thing on your mind. I also don't see smiles and good wishes as a minimizing of burdens...if I am having a bad day I try to save them for a better day to be appreciated that much more. I don't get them very often