Compartment Syndrome
is an injury that is generally caused by either long distance running training or being crushed. I am certainly not a runner, nor have I been crushed. Yet I find myself preparing to have surgery for Compartment Syndrome. 6 1/2 weeks, as I was walking out the back door, my foot twisted in my shoe and I sorta slid off of ONE step. I landed with a thud and immediately felt pain - thinking I had pulled some leg muscles.
A week goes by and I can not hardly walk without wanting to cry, so I finally visit my orthopaedic doctor to see if maybe I have broken my leg. X rays say no, so it goes into a walking cast to add some support to the muscles while it heals.
Things go downhill from there as the pain just gets worse every day. Every pain pill I hadn't taken after 5 shoulder surgeries became my best friend and yet the pain just kept intensifying. I felt better about how much I kept saying it hurt when I yesterday I read an article from the Journal of Bone and joint surgery which said,
Pain is often reported early and almost universally. The description is usually of exquisite, deep, constant, and poorly localized pain out of proportion with the findings on physical examination (often incorrectly described as pain out of proportion to the injury). The pain is not relieved by analgesia up to and including morphine.
I have no trouble whatsoever believing that. As I told my family and doctor, I have never been in such constant, intense pain in my life.
Finally, a couple of days ago, I had an MRI. I didn't want to do that, since I am currently uninsured. But there was obviously something going on, so I agreed to do that. The MRI was perfectly normal, and when I went to get my results from the doctor, he examined my leg and said he thought I had C.S.
Which he said would be rare since I didn't the common scenarios for developing it. But a pressure test would determine whether or not I did. I make the long walk to the elevator and go down to the therapy room. The pressure test is done by numbing your leg (a bit) and then inserting a needle into it, with some machine attached which somehow measures the pressure in your muscles. You then exercise and they do it again to see if the pressure increases. Your pressure should be around 10 the first time.
If your pressure is at 30 or above, you are in danger of losing the limb, be it your arm or leg. He measured mine at rest and I heard him say, "It's at 25, we are done here. Get her upstairs and don't have her walk." Lovely words. Not the pressure part, but the "don't have her walk part." My leg has gotten to the point that it hurts so much to walk, I have started using the handicap scooter at Wal-Mart at times.
Surgery is the only thing there is to relieve the pressure. They will slice open the side of my leg and cut all the fibrous tendons that attach the muscles to allow them to release the swelling. Sort of like when you cut the casing on a sausage and the meat explodes out. Nice analogy I know, but it's what I was told. They a long instrument is inserted both up and down the length of the lower leg to slice all the muscles. I watched a video of the surgery on Youtube. Big mistake.
I reminded the good doctor that I had no insurance and asked if I could be awake. He was adamant that I could not. Having seen the video, I now understand completely. He did, however, say he would talk to the anestheolgist and get me a good deal. He went on to say something about making a lot of money over the years on me and he would give me a great discount.
He started talking about how surviving such a traumatic accident which in comparison had not caused me hardly any pain vs. this simple slip off of a single step - how it just didn't seem fair. I thanked him and when he left the room, I cried a bit (both from gratitude at the reduced bill and the thought that the pain was going to go away soon.) Truthfully, at that point, I would have paid anything to have the pain go away, so I think the tears were more for that than anything.
Had my pre-op testing done and when I went to check out to pay my discounted rate, I was dreading it. A 2 hour appointment with the doctor and physician assistant, the pressure test, blood work, and an EKG. The total bill -- zero.
Deep discount indeed. I knew there was a reason I liked that doctor. So now I wait for the call and it should come in the next few days to have surgery.
