The Rollercoaster Ride Starts

Ok it's August 2002, and the day of my daughters foot operation she will go in as a day patient have the surgery done in the morning and be home in the afternoon.
Well things seem to go well and she came back from theatre with her foot and leg bandaged all the way up (lol) the only part I could see was her little toes sticking out the of end.
After resting for a while the doctor came to see her and told us that she could go home, she was helped out of the bed by nurse and tried to walk to the bathroom...her foot hurt so much and she couldnt put any weight on it at all.
The nurse had a word with the doctor who gave her Paracetamol for the pain (lol) and then sent her home using a pair of crutches,
We were told to come back in ten days time to have the stiches removed from her foot.
Natalie was in a lot of pain when we got home so she lay on the sofa with her foot elevated and took painkillers.
The following day the pain was much worse and her toes had started to go slightly blue, I thought it was bruising coming out in her foot after the operation, her toes were also very cold.
I telephoned my GP and explained the problem he left me a prescription for stronger painkillers and told me to elevate her foot,and contact the hospital if I was worried about it.
We tried to hold of calling the hospital but when the stronger painkillers didnt help and we couldnt get any heat into her foot I called them.....which was no good anyway, I was told that If I had a problem I was to take her to casualty department as they only deal with day patients. (ok so they mess up your opp and pass you on to someone else) Bloody NHS
So the next day we went back to my GP who took off the bandage and checked for any infection in the wound, but it looked fine although he did agree that her foot was very cold.
A week later she was still having problems she could hardly sleep at night so I phoned the hospital again who told us to carry on elevating her foot and using the painkillers.
Ten days after the operation Natalie returned to have the bandage removed and the stitches taken out, she was still using crutches to get around and still unable to put any weight on her foot. After the stitches were removed the Doctor popped his head in the room took a quick look at her scar and said 'fine, fine it all looks fine'.
I said to him why is that Natalie is so much pain and every time she puts her foot down toward the floor it looks like the blood is going down her foot as it goes from white to pink then red then blue....it looks like the blood is getting stuck somewhere and cant get back up her leg.
' Oh its fine he said we will get some physio arranged and that will sort it out, and you really need to be putting weight on it Natalie' he said.
I tried to explain that she couldnt put weight on it because of the pain but he didnt listen.
To cut this story short a bit Im going to jump to Five weeks after the operation......
The pain in Natalies leg never went it was there all the time even the painkillers didnt work, then one Sunday evening Natalie came out from the bath and she was crying I knew this had to be bad as she doesnt usually cry, I looked at her leg and it was swollen it was much bigger than her other leg so I knew something must be wrong...I phoned the GP who told me to take her to Casualty....She was admitted for tests, and the following morning when I phoned the ward they told me that Natalie had had a DVT.
I was shocked Deep Vain Thrombosis is something you get on long flights and not when you are just fourteen years old.
We were told she was very lucky to have went to casualty that evening as the clots were in her calf and just above the knee. Natalie was put on Warfarin Tablets for six months to thin her blood.
The following week was our six week checkup at the Orthopaedics Dept, this was my chance to tell this stupid Doctor what he had missed.
Only thing was we were given more news about Natalies condition,and this kind of threw me about what I had prepared to say to him, he had student Doctors in the room and as he examined Natalies foot everytime he touched it very gently she winced in pain and pulled her foot away.....he looked at the students, then at me and said 'see how painful her foot is even to touch very lightly, this is a classic case of RSD. He looked at me again and said
' you've probabily read about it in magazines'
I just looked at Natalie and she looked at me ...I whispered to her ' what have you got'.
She just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head 'I dont know'.
We left the room after being there for a whole six minute appointment and left not having a clue about her condition, we asked the nurse outside the room 'do you have any information about RSD' whats that she said......great I thought nobody even knows what it is.
I looked it up on the internet and found a wonderfull support group for people with RSD/CRPS. I will add a link for people who would like to know more about this condition.
And so the Rollercoaster climbed Higher and Higher......

Life can sometimes be like a Rollercoaster

Rollercoaster's....They slowly climb to the top going higher & higher as we get more and more nervous.....then when we least expect it down we go all the way to the bottom very very fast then slowly back to the top to do it all over again.......Aaaagggggghhhhh
Makes me wonder why people would want to do that you would never get me to go on one, the thought of it fills me with terror, yet life can be just like a Rollercoaster going up & down and being scared along the way......This is the story of the Rollercoaster ride in my life.

In August 2002 my youngest daughter Natalie (Natz) as she likes to be called had just turned fourteen in April of that year, she was just a normal teenager doing the things teenagers do...dancing, going out with friends, listening to music, and shopping.
one afternoon on the way home from school she slipped of the edge of the kerb and twisted her foot and ankle, it was swollen and tender so we went to the hospital to have it looked at. They did an x-ray which came back normal so she was given a tubagrip bandage and sent home to rest it.
Some weeks later it should have healed but instead it was still causing her problems, we noticed a small lump on the inside of her foot which was very painful to touch, this caused problems when her trainers or shoes rubbed against it, so the GP sent us to see an orthopaedic doctor at the hospital who did a second x-ray this time it showed up a small growth on one of the bones in her foot, the doctor told us it was called a Neuroma.
He told us that he could try some other other treatments, but that if they didnt help we might like to think about an operation to have it removed by surgery. In the end this was the choice we had to make nothing else was helping with the pain,and this was the beginning of my Rollercoaster Ride......

SKIP - Supporting Kids In Pain

SKIP - Supporting Kids In Pain