The worst part of the pandemic was behind us, so we thought. We were getting off to a great start with homeschool. Our October went amazing. We had a wonderful Halloween, we saw businesses and church reopening…
And then…
My sciatic nerve flared up in the worst way that I’ve ever experienced.
In less than 6 hours, I went from happy at church with some aches and pains from our Halloween walk…
To excruciating pain on the floor, unable to move.
In recent years, I had a couple major flares that were awful. But this was way worse. Way, way worse.
It felt like chain saws were gnawing at my left hip. Heat and shooting pain and throbbing like I’ve never felt.
But it was just temporary, right? All these flares are temporary. If I could just manage the pain long enough, the flare would pass and I could get on with my life.
I tried to rest and lay low. I canceled my lessons for the week to give me plenty of time to rest.
But it soon became apparent that I could not control the pain. Every time I moved, it felt like daggers with hot lava were scraping all around my hips on both sides and down my left leg.
Three days in, the pain was not getting better. It actually felt worse. Jeremy had gone from intermittently helping me to being my fulltime nurse. Getting me fresh ice, a drink of water with more pain killer, applying pressure to my tight muscles. Rearranging the pillows that I was laying on.
With Jeremy’s help, I could move into a new position and feel okay for a few minutes, then the pain would start again. I couldn’t do anything on my own, so I just laid in bed.
Nothing brought relief longer than a few minutes.
Did ice work? No.
Heat? No.
Creams? No.
IB profin? No.
More IB profin? No.
Shower? No.
Laying flat? Laying Curved? Kinked? Standing? No, no no no.
The boys played and did stuff I didn’t know about. They also had a lot of screen time. Jeremy kept bouncing back and forth between his work and helping me.
All I could do was just lay there. I couldn’t sit up long enough to eat. I couldn’t get up or walk by myself. I couldn’t even talk to people or see straight. I was too busy wincing from the pain. The image of fiery orange flames billowing out of my leg distracted me from everything else. The heat and shooting sensations was incredibly intense.
Out of a 1-10 pain scale, it was level 15.
We got a remote doctor appointment at the end of day 3. They gave me a rx for Gabapentin, which is supposed to block nerve pain. Jeremy picked it up immediately.
Did that work? No.
Ouchie…the pain was exhausting, it would literally take my breath away.
Grinding sounds. My head was throbbing with sounds of a machine pounding, grinding, slicing, shooting through my hip and leg. Six times more painful than all-natural childbirth.
Five days in. We called the doctor again to ask for stronger medication. They upped the dosage of the Gabapentin. Did it work? No.
We were getting really discouraged. Five days was the longest we’ve ever dealt with this. I seriously contemplated how I could die instead of having to endure this unrelievable pain.
Jeremy gave me a priesthood blessing. The blessing said that I would eventually get better. We were hopeful, but feelings of discouragement crept back as the pain continued.
Should we go to the ER? We could… but what good would that do? We knew from previous experience, the ER was all bad news. We paid over $2500 out of pocket the last time I had a flare. And they barely did anything for me then.
I knew that hydrocodone worked last time. Why can’t the doctor just prescribe that for me? Becuase there’s stricter rules about who can have those drugs.
Jeremy was exhausted. Taking care of me was really hard because I was so irritiable and unpleasant to be around. He was at the end of his rope helping me.
My legs were very weak. I couldn’t get up to pee anymore. Jeremy brought me a bowl to pee in. I got on all fours on our bed. I didn’t care how stupid it looked. For Jeremy, it was traumatic.
Six days in. The pain was STILL excruciating, the increased dose of Gabapentin was taking the edge off a little, but that only would last for 30-45 minutes. And I still could not sit up or walk without pain. The bottle said to take every 4-6 hours.
What on earth was going on? Why wasn’t my body responding to any of these pain relievers?
Jeremy went to the pot store to get me CBD gummies and oils. It was the only other thing we could think of that we hadn’t tried yet. Did that work? Actually, a little bit. The cream helped take the edge off on certain parts of my leg.
Seven days in. One whole week! We had another virtual appointment with the doctor, where I begged for different meds. They said they can’t give us anything stronger. We were told that if we go to the ER, they can prescribe us something stronger like narcotics.
As much as we did NOT want to go to the ER, we decided that if this was the only way to quickly get stronger drugs, then we needed to go. One week of hell was long enough.
We arranged for the kids to sleep at the neighbors and we packed a bag for the hospital.
I knew Jeremy could carry me to the car, but the idea of trying to sit in the car or even lay in the car was not something I could accomplish with the level of pain that I had. We called the paramedics to come get me.
Cringe for our pocket books! But halleluiah for me. They treated me really well during the ride there.
Jeremy followed the ambulance to the hospital. The paramedics got me into a room right away.
And that’s when the abuse from the nurses and doctors began. They wouldn’t let Jeremy in with me because of Covid. They asked me a billion questions, and it was hard for me to answer and advocate for myself because I was so weak and exhausted from a week of constant pain.
They minimized my testimony about how much pain I was in. They refused to do any imaging to see what was wrong with me. They gave me a fraction of the amount of pain killer that worked for me last time I was in the hospital. After 45 minutes, the pain started to come back and instead of helping me, they began to discharge me.
Turns out, they thought I was a drug addict trying to get more drugs to abuse.
I insisted that they help me and get me medicine that will actually take the pain away. They only prescribed me with steroids and a strong dosage of IB profin. I was livid and started crying. “The only reason I bothered to come here was because my doctor said that this is the only way I could get stronger drugs. I can’t keep being in pain like this!”
They brought a wheelchair to escort me out of the ER. I said no, that I need to talk to the doctor to understand why I’m being discharged when I’m still in pain.
A security guard was called over and they told me to get in the wheelchair now.
Sitting in the wheel chair, of course, made a surge of pain shoot all up and down my leg. I screamed bloody murder and jumped out of my seat. I hobbled around sobbing, because putting pressure on my full feet also hurt. The security guard told me I have to leave now. The nurse yelled at me. I told them it’s too painful to sit and I can’t walk.
I put one knee on the wheelchair seat and he rolled me out to where Jeremy was waiting.
I was balling hysterically. I was betrayed, defeated, in absolute despair.
There was nowhere to lay down so I collapsed on the tile floor and writhed around in pain, screaming and wailing.
Jeremy yelled at the security and the nurses. “What the heck is going on?! Why is my wife screaming!? Where is the doctor! Why are you not helping her!??”
The doctor came out and had a conversation with Jeremy, all the while I’m still on the tile floor crying. The doctor implied that drug abuse was at play, and questioned Jermey’s role in all of this. Ya know, I have been here before and I’m back again, this is a red flag for drug abuse.
Jeremy was beside himself.
He told the truth. I have chronic back pain and I get sciatic flares. We don’t know why.
I think at this point the doctor realized he was a complete dick-head. He asked us what drugs our primary care doctor gave us. When Jeremy told him the dose of the Gabapentin, he said we could take a lot more of that and still be safe. (Why hadn’t the other doctors told us this!?!)
Then, he left. We had to get ourselves out of the ER.
Absolutely infuriating and humiliating.
I canceled another week of teaching and endured 7 more difficult days trying to manage the pain. During that week, a friend gave us some left over pain medication from her surgery that actually worked!
Finally by day 14, I felt like my pain was manageable enough for me to pee on the toilet, walk around a little, and sit for 5 minutes at a time to eat a meal. I still had to rest a lot.
Jeremy was deflated trying to manage our house, the kids, his job and take care of me. Fortunately, neighbors and church members brought us a few meals, which helped immensely. Friends even did grocery shopping for us and took the boys to the their YMCA camp. We were so grateful.
We signed the boys up for a YMCA enrichment camp to help make sure they were getting taken care of while Jeremy and I dealt with my issues. They enjoyed it, phew! At home, to pass the time, the boys took pictures around the house, played with the neighbors and had a lot of screen time.
Week 3 came along. Still pain! I reluctantly canceled all my lessons again. I was getting better, but not well enough to teach. I still couldn’t really do anything except walk around a little and put on CBD cream and take pills. I had lost weight and energy and muscle mass. We were not sure how to get through another week of being spread so thin.
Then, miraculously, Grandma Zavoral knocked on the door! What a surprise!! How did she get here, she was just in Texas?! Turns out that as soon as she landed home in Sacramento, she got in the car to come rescue us.
The boys were really excited to welcome her and fix up a bed for her.
Dallin wrote the neighbor a note explaining that he is going to play with Grandma.
Having Grandma Z here meant that Jeremy could start his job at work again. It meant that every meal was taken care of and cleaned up afterward. I was able to rest and find specialists to help diagnose what was wrong with me.
Grandma took the boys on some really fun outings, in addition to their YMCA camp. It was a big task to find places that were open because everywhere was closing down again. They went to Balboa Park, the Botanical Gardens of San Diego (more details to come in the next blog post), the swimming pool and shopping for new clothes.
I eventually got 2 MRI’s that revealed I had a severe herniated disc at L5-S1, bulging onto both sides of my spinal chord and pinching both sciatic nerves on left and right. It was very puzzling to the surgeon that the herniation was so severe, since I had no recent impact injury. Also disc degeneration and a Tarlov cycst that nobody seems to care about.
We think that I’ve had a herniation for many years, as early as 2007, and it has just gotten worse and worse. This was the first ever MRI that I’ve had (beacuse all the prior doctors were idiots), so it is impossible to know for sure how long I’ve had the herniation or why it decided to go bazurk right now. The best explanation I can conjure is that I had the perfect storm- too much sugar, too much overexerting myself, and it was right before my period.
No cysts or abnormalities showed up with the ultrasound. Although I would not be surprised if I have endometriosis, since my chronic back pain always gets worse during pms and ovulation.
The orthopedic surgeon said that he will prescribe me narcotics anytime I have a flare. He also ordered me physical therapy and surgery, based on how my symptoms work out over the coming weeks and months.
It felt so good to have some relief to the pain. But the effects of this episode would be with us for several months.
I’m so grateful for Jeremy, Grandma, and all our friends and church members that helped us endure this very horrible, horrible time of despair for me and my family.
