After several appointments with pain doctors over the years and the unfortunate habit of said doctors prescribing pain meds, I finally found one who actually dealt with the pain. Mostly by interrupting the pain rather than dulling it.
So, how did I come to have a pain problem? I was skiing my last trip down the hill…isn’t it always the last trip? I was on the run back to the lodge at Heavenly, Lake Tahoe on March 28, 1978. Funny how I can remember that date, it just slips off my tongue.
After a day of skiing moguls, I was tired. It was afternoon and my knees had had enough and the snow was slushy. I fell. A stupid simple fall that normally I would never have done had I not been too tired to try and avoid a fall. Within seconds, I was hit. Screaming in pain. A woman stood over me and said, “I’m so sorry, I either had to go over you or around you.” She picked the wrong one. As I was on the frozen snow, screaming, a man came over to help me. “Get me up!” The man did as I demanded. “Put me back down!” He did. The pain didn’t go away. I didn’t know whether I had broken my neck or my spine. I wasn’t able to think through the blinding pain. The man stayed with me and put his hand on my thigh, which was calming since I was shaking.
The rescue helicopter had gone out of the area 15-minutes before so two ski patrol fellows arrived with a sled to ski me to the emergency area at the lodge. I don’t remember who called them (no cell phones back then), or how long it took them to get there, I just remember that man’s hand on my leg.
Once the ski patrol strapped me from my head to my toes (with my ski boots still on), they began to ski me down the hill. My screaming stopped them in their tracks. So, they lifted me and carried me down. I’m not sure they skied while they carried me or walked me, I just know that it took them two and a half hours to complete the journey. So they probably walked, carrying me on the sled/stretcher.
At the bottom I know the ski patrol left me in the care of a female. Not sure who she was; emergency nurse, person manning the clinic, was it a clinic? I didn’t care, I couldn’t stop begging her to untie the straps holding my feet. I couldn’t stop the pain and neither could she.
The bank where I had worked put me on four-hour days, I couldn’t last longer than that. Physical therapy lasted a year until a new therapist decided to do a shiatsu-style massage that set me back weeks. So much for therapy. I left the job.
Over the years I had back and neck problems. I landed in sales, owning my manufacturer’s rep business. I had purchased a motor home to use to show clients/stores when covering my area of California, Oregon and Washington state after dragging cases of jewelry became impossible due to the weight. With the motor home, clients came out from their stores. Even the main buyer for Macys hopped in the RV. Still adventurous, I pretty much had given up most sports until I found rowing, which strengthen the muscles around my bulging disc. But I was dependent on someone carrying my rowing shell for me to the dock.
The pandemic years and months in 2023 has been hard on my back. So hard that I went to pain doctors, but I found the meds they gave me were addicting and went through 10 messed up days after I stopped them in early 2019. I finally lost weight, lowered my blood pressure from the weight-loss, stopped eating sugar but the back grew increasingly worse. The day before Thanksgiving my legs gave out in Safeway, while buying some vegan food for my planned Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house.
Cutting to the chase, I haven’t driven my car since then. I found THE doctor, through an off-chance conversation with a friend about back pain.
Last week Thursday my doctor ran a test-run of a Spinal Cord Stimulator, putting two wires into my spinal cord that would interrupt the pain conversation between my bulging disc and the pain center in my brain. I wore the device on an annoying belt around my waist for four days.
Guess what? It worked for me. I could actually walk without pain, which I did every day during the test. I even raked a tiny spot in my backyard (the doctor said to push myself for the test) and washed some dishes. So exciting. I had dreams of rowing again (well, baby steps), of walking to my friend’s house. Being able to sit on my couch without pain. Being able to build a life without pain that was initially caused 45 years ago.
What is this girl to do?…my dear friend Mabel is taking me back to the doctor to have the Spinal Cord Stimulator surgically implanted this coming week. I’m not anxious about this operation, like I was for the test-run, I’m excited!
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
