Bob A

I remember the very first session at therapy. Everyone was kind and supportive to my injury. I did minor exercises and at the end the therapist put the ice boot on my foot, very carefully. It actually felt good at the time. The problem that I discovered later on as the weeks went by was that later in the day my foot was swollen and the pain seemed to be a little worse. As the weeks went on the burning got worse. It would always take me a day for the pain and swelling to go down a little. Then I would go back to therapy again. I was going 3 times a week, every other day. The ice boot really did feel good at the beginning, but as I told the therapists and the doctor, something was changing. I no longer enjoyed the therapy. I knew the ice boot was causing me more pain than necessary. The exercises were causing too much pain. I would ride their exercise bike for 10 minutes and when I was done Icould hardly walk to the “Kat” machine for the balancing act. Their philosophy was that the ice boot was necessary to control the swelling. I called it going to “The House of Pain”. Like I said, I had brief relief of pain for several minutes, but a few hours later it was always pay back time from my foot. It’s like my foot really has a mind of it’s own.
The pain spread to my inner leg thigh area and inside hip. At times it burns as if someone squirted lighter fluid on me and lit it. I thought maybe it was a blood clot forming , so during one office visit with the doctor I told the physician’s assistant about it. He said there would be swelling of the upper leg and not to be concerned about it, it was probably just a pulled muscle and will go away.

The palm of my left hand has been hurting since the accident , but there has been so much pain to the foot area that I continued to disregard the hand pain. It continuous to hurt daily. I was bending over with a snow shovel to get a scoop of snow when I was blind sided. The shovel was lying next to me snapped in half.

My knee still locks up and cracks. Today it locked 2 times for hours each time. Do you know what that’s like? Hammer a nail into your knee just behind the knee cap and try to walk with a smile on your face. Don’t forget to wish everyone you meet to “Have a nice day”.
At 19 weeks after the accident I still couldn’t bend my big toe, my ankle burns like there was burning gasoline on it, and I can’t tolerate wearing socks on my left foot. Every day I have headaches, sometimes they are bad ones. I get terrible back spasms that last for days without letting up. The doctor gave me anti-inflammatory drugs for my back. I know my back is screwed up too. I had a lower lumbar back spasim for 10 days after the accident. This is probably because when the 800 pound pipe knocked me down I landed on my back in a twisted motion.
During one of my many doctor appointments I complained to the doctor about the non stop burning pain I was having in my left ankle. He said that he did not understand why I should be having pain in my ankle since the x-rays looked good and there were no fractures to the area. I said rather loudly and aggressively, “Why don’t you just cut my foot off at the ankle and save me all this pain.” He said, “You would probably be better off.”
8-16-03 I Slept for 9 hours. (I marked it on the calendar)Almost a record. But throughout 90% of the day I was in pain. My back still ached, left foot burning and I had trouble walking without losing my balance. There especially was a problem when trying to make turns. I felt like a tractor-n-trailer trying to turn in an area without enough room and running over the curbs. The top of me wanted to turn, but the bottom half had a mind of it’s own and kept going into a delayed mode. Oh yea, I almost forgot, my left ear was ringing very loud like thousands of crickets. My vision was blurred, I had severe neck pains and I had trouble remembering things. Seems like another great day to be alive. I have had many days where my mind seems to wander terribly and I can’t remember what day it is.
I seemed to have developed a three way personality. Straight down the middle I am normal and fine. A real nice guy with a great personality. When I drift to the left, I become passive, slow, clumsy, forgetful, paranoid of people, slow speech, blurred vision. I have trouble spelling and even my hand writing is terrible. When I drift to the right I become very nasty, aggressive, hot, loud ringing in the ears, bad attitude and hostility take over the pain. Not nice to be around. Usually when I come out of this personality I go into the passive mode, also with a headache and nauseous feeling. Burning doubles and swelling grows as if the foot were just injured. I was never like this before my accident.

I have also realized the longer I am idle, the more pain I get with swelling. If I sit for 15 min. or stand for 15. min. or lie down for 2 hrs. or more, the left foot and ankle swell more than usual and the burning sensation magnifies.
My long term memory is still with me but the short term is terrible. An example would be walking from one room to another and forget what I was going to do, or going into a building and not remembering why I was there.
I know it’s only been 7 months since the accident, but I’m getting so-o-o-o tired of all this. I can’t sleep unless I run myself into the ground and am so tired that I almost can’t make it up the stairs to bed. If I get 6 hours of sleep in a night I consider that to be fantastic. I usually get 3 to 4 hrs. a night. I’m also tired of everything agitating me. I’m so damn irritable most of the time I start to hate myself. I look at myself as being a real loser in life. I worry constantly about my family’s future. What will happen if I can’t get another job because I’m screwed up mentally and physically because of some ******* who should have been fired on the spot. He tried for 9 weeks to **** me off and quit. Time after time he did things that were unsafe. Unsafe to me, not him. I was a threat to his knowledge. Always saying that knowledge is power. No one else could work with him for longer than 3 weeks. Most only worked with him for 2 or 3 days and went back to the boss and told him if they had to work another day with him they would leave him at the job site. I get so depressed about this whole situation I get sick. I mean physically sick where I want to throw up. I already asked one doctor about amputation of the left foot. Why not is what I want to know??? There is no cure for me. I’m turning into a freak.
What’s wrong with these ******* doctors anyway who tell you , “Maybe you had a mild stroke.” This is bull**** and just another cop-out. This really ****es me off. I’ll bet if these doctors were to have pain like mine they would be more understanding and do some research as to why this is happening, and not passe it off by telling me there’s no relationship in your pain and your injury, maybe you should see your family physician.
The guy who did this to me never even apologized. See what I mean. He probably felt bad about it, but I seriously think that he saw me standing there and figured that if he knocked the pipe on to the ground next to me that it would give me a good scare. Well, it sure did. He mis calculated a little and almost killed me.
I’m not nuts...just upset. How would anyone else feel if their life changed in a fraction of a second through no fault of their own.
As for now I try to limit my intake of pills. By the end of the day I would like to take more, but it starts to bother my stomach and I get a nasty taste in my throat. Not to mention the “Other Voices” that just babble nonsense.
Some days I just don’t give-a-**** and I tell my foot, “C’mon *******, you can’t beat me. You’re a worthless piece of scum and if you don’t watch yourself you’ll soon be looking for another home.”



One of the doctors told me I will have good days and bad days. The only problem is, I definitely have bad days, many of them are totally bad with no chance of good. I have not had a good day in months. Most of the time I only have good hours. I consider myself fortunate for that because most of the time an hour is all I get.


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Bob A.

[This message has been edited by Bob A (edited 09-09-2003).]