How Do We Cope With The Pain

Ok so we manage to get over the Xmas while Natalie is still taking the Warfarin to thin her blood, and still trying different medications to help with the constant pain of the RSD. We still have lots of Hospital appointments which eat into my paid time off work, and its costing us a fortune in bus fares and Taxi to and from Hospital.
Its been six months and lots & lots of Blood tests have been taken to check her INR so that she could take the correct amount of medication to keep her blood at the correct level, and now finaly an appointment with a Pain Clinic has been arranged, only its for an adult pain clinic.....she has only just turned fifteen.

So after one visit to the Pain Clinic the doctor agreed that she does have RSD and should be seen by a another pain doctor but this time at the childrens hospital, he would write to them and an appointment would be sent.
At long last we visit the pain clinic doctor at the childrens hospital and she seems very nice, she also undersatnds about the problem with RSD after speaking to Natalie and getting some of her history together, we try different types of Medication and also things like Physio and the use of a Tens Machine, The Ten's worked well at first helping a little with the leg pain but gradually it had to be turned up higher and higher to have the same effect.
Some of the medication Natalie was given would have side effects and had to be stopped, Physio was not possible because there was so much pain in her foot and leg due to the RSD that in order for any kind of Physio to take place first the pain had to be under control, we just kept going round and round in circle's.

Then during one of our visits to the pain clinic we were told about another Doctor who worked in a childrens hospital in Glasgow, he specialised in something called a (Bilateral Sympathetic Block) this procedure was done while the patient was asleep.
The doctor would inject Anasthetic into the patients spine just like an Epidural and this would shut of the nerves for around 6-8 hours then when they came back on, the doctor said its a bit like re-booting your computer....the signals which were mixed up very often go back into normal mode.
Wow.....sounds too good to be true we thought, I mean how many mothers out there have had an Epidural while in Labour.....I had one when I had Natalie...No Problems I thought what could be better than helping the pain in her leg and getting it back to normal just by having a simple Epidural...and she would be asleep.
We were over the moon...we couldnt wait to see if this doctor in Glasgow would go ahead with this procedure....but only after waiting 3 weeks we have our first visit and assesment by him.
After talking to Natalie and myself and telling us about this great treatment... he said he would be willing to go ahead with it.....two weeks later we have an appointment for the operation and we are to stay in Yorkhill Childrens Hospital for Four days...this is because after the Epidural the children having this procedure have three days of intense physio when the nerves arent out of control.

I had read on the support group for the RSD that some of the children from that group spoke highly of this Doctor and the good work he did for RSD, as I flicked through some of the stories of parents who's children had been helped by this the more excited we became about having this done.

On the 9th of June 2003 Natalie was addmitted to Yorkhill Hospital for the Bilateral Sympathetic Block.

Now this is where the Rollercoaster goes way out of Control The most frightening ride of my life....