As the end of my collegiate years approached in the Long Beach State journalism program, I quickly awoke to the realization that I would be embarking on the road to becoming a reporter with a grueling schedule and little compensation. With that bitter taste of reality, I felt it necessary to finally be honest with myself about what profession I'd be able to happily pursue in the realm of "real life." As I've always had a knack for working with kids, I played off childhood fantasies of becoming a primary school teacher and decided to just go for it. My parents, staunch advocates of any and all types of higher education, made me an offer I couldn't refuse; come back home to San Jose and they'd pay my way through grad school. My mom, in the stereotypical fashion of a Chinese "Tiger mom", was especially excited over the idea of having a daughter with a master's degree.
Upon moving back home, the pain increased in my severely flat feet (so severely flat they would be considered "deformed" -- yikes!-- in the medical community) and started to affect my knees and hips. Once a month, my left knee cap would randomly become dislocated causing me to fall flat on my face, screaming and twisting with black-out pain. Not fun. I met with a doctor who seemed enthusiastic about my undergoing surgery so that I could be back on my feet, so to speak (pun intended, I couldn't help myself). Ideally, I could go through two major surgeries one foot at a time and recover while getting my master's in education and teaching degree.
Four surgeries and three years later (one additional surgery to take out a screw, another to correct a prior foot surgery gone wrong), I've now been diagnosed (FINALLY!) with CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) --formerly known as RSD, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy --and Fibromyalgia due to the the trauma inflicted on my feet by the surgeries. It took a whole year and a half of doctors -- some looking confused, others talking out of their arses -- mostly because there is very little, if any, research or information on this condition. They would send me around and around in circles -- from the PCP to the neurologist, to the rheumotologist, back to the PCP, then to the pain doctor -- before they knuckled down to try to help me. Unfortunately, because so much time had passed, my RSD has advanced to a point where my foot is now discolored and the skin had thinned out, exposing all sorts of purplish-green veins. Thanks, docs. Everything I've dug up on this disease says that your only hope to prevent the progression of the disease is to start treatment immediately after diagnosis. Mine hasn't been immediate enough, and so far nothing that Kaiser has offered me has worked: physical therapy, sympathetic lumbar nerve blocks, opiate therapy, scar neuromas, cryotherapy, etc.
Inspired by some awesome people in the blogging community (namely, this amazing and strong woman http://prefontaine44.blogspot.com/) and by my perseverant, insistent, and downright annoyingly optimistic yet loving fiancé, Dennis, I'm once again motivated to take charge of my health, especially since the doctors can't work any miracles yet. Starting next week, I'll be, once-again, adopting an anti-inflammatory, dairy-free, meat-free diet (I hesitate to call it vegan since, for one thing, I haven't decided whether to give up organic wild Alaskan salmon and, for another, not sure whether I'm ready to take on such a politically charged stance although I'm all for being cruelty free -- more on this later). The humble part of me wants to say that I will be "attempting" to adopt this diet, but "trying" implies failure and presents opportunity to create excuses.
So cheers! Here's to the beginning of a cleansing, from the inside-out! :)
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