Hi there!
I am Nicole, turning 37 years old, and I
I was born prematurely at 24 weeks at 16.5 ounces and have a few birth defects, had to adapt all my life to learn to walk,talk, or even eat. I have always had a susceptible immune system and night-time seizures and difficulty focusing, maintaining balance, but since 2014 I have collected more than several auto-immune conditions, each one harder than the next to adapt to. I was on SSDI for several years when I found my passion for veterinary medicine through my service dog (self-trained), Hopey and I quickly passed all the coursework, externships, and national licensing exams. I went on to work in General Practice, Emergency Medicine and several specialties, and then was a veterinary laboratory technician and rose to the top and became the director. I had voluntarily taken myself off of SSDI, knowing there were limited spots and I didn’t want to take one if I could work, although most of the time I made less than what I was on SSDI. During the pandemic while working full-time at the veterinary ER and part-time at the veterinary GP, I sustained a work injury transported a Great Dane with an open abdominal incision coming via ambulance to us to finish/re-do the surgery, where the other two people helping carry the stretcher were losing their grips but failed to communicate it. Not wanting the critical animal to drop 4 feet onto the ever-dirty floor especially while open, I overcompensated enough to slow it down to almost graceful, not knowing it would come with a price. I knew that hurt but it wasn’t until hours later I told my manager and went to worker’s comp urgent care and because there was a process for injuries it took weeks to get past, rest/lift restrictions and into real definitive imaging which showed a grade 3/3 thoracic muscle tear and several disc herniations and stenosis along my neck and thoracic. Usually slipped or herniated discs if causing symptoms, can be mild to moderate, and up to 85-95% resolve with rest, time, and maybe some PT. What was troubling were the degree, number, and location as well as my other conditions and jobs. My highest level of disc injury was at c3-4 and my lowest at the time was T8-9, my legs seemed a little “weird” to me, but my upper strength was gone and my grip was not even enough to hold my travel lightweight coffee mug. I still was working although mostly when they had front desk or client education appointments due to my restrictions. I continued to do the PT and see my other doctors as well. Eventually,I moved states from Florida to Pennsylvania in hopes of saving my kidneys since I had developed Systemic Lupus while living there and the climate and photosensitivity were becoming life threatening. I was lucky enough to be transferred job wise, met, dated, and married my spouse now of almost 5 years. Things weren’t perfect health wise for either of us but things were stabilizing and them being 8 years my junior, had their whole career in front of them. We bought a house (after looking for almost a year and losing several bids due to people wanting to waive inspections, it was not our first choice, a new build, HOA, two story but we made it our own with the master on the first floor and had a lot of plans in mind)in early summer 2023 and a week after signing and before moving in fully, I fell down the stairs worsening my pre-existing conditions and injuries, and curling my tailbone and shifting my sacrum. Luckily I had vacation saved up and that my work has some short term disability benefits since it wasn’t getting better after urgent care, ER, and orthopedic doctor visits. They started me on more pain meds, I waited to see more doctors, and saw for almost a full year 3 times a week a pelvic floor physical therapist that internally would spend an hour just basically holding my tailbone straighter. I cried almost every time. It wasn’t working and doctors weren’t really listening, my work was getting frustrated, and I was getting desperate. I saw a few more doctors and since I am not a candidate for many kinds of spine surgery they did a trial of an intrathecal targeted drug delivery system (aka Pain Pump) and I danced with my spouse and didn’t cry as much just to go to the bathroom or shower and spent a few more hours out of bed. Then I had to find a doctor within my health insurance’s network to do the surgery, I had to gain weight specifically FOR the surgery since I was/am severely underweight due to a calorie-protein malabsorption congenital issue. He said that normally given any other patient, he would say no, but the surgery was the only option I had left to give me any quality of life as I progressed. We had to travel a few states for the surgery and could go back home with specific instructions and if any issues arose my spouse was to not call the phone number on the discharge but the actual surgeon’s cell phone. Well, they did, on the ride home I started out with a weird headache and nausea. My spouse half carried me inside a Burger King where we proceeded to puke and gag together (that’s love) and drink bits of Coca-cola. When we got home we thought maybe it was from pain so continued with the regular schedule but it didn’t go away. The next afternoon, a few days after the surgery, my spouse decided to call, not knowing what else to do since now it wasn’t just a weird headache but I was getting weaker, had several breakthrough seizures, and couldn’t take any lights near me, and got dizzy getting up to the bathroom. It rang. No answer. Left a voicemail. Tried again several hours later. Same. Over the next few days they called him, the hospital that was now several states away, and his offices, who read my file and told us to just contact him. We actually got used to somewhat, me living like a flat, deaf, mute, vampire and peeing in a paint tray most of the time out of fear. No sound was too quiet, not even my own voice. No light was too dim, I wore a full head eye mask. No elevation, even my special neck pillow, was acceptable. We made it somehow to my recheck. It was a SUBSTITUTE doctor that day. He knew nothing about this surgery. Or the symptoms. Or me. He told me to lay as flat as possible and drink some caffeine.
The story TBD…because I am too tired.