My Comeback Story: Dorothy S.

Digging a ditch my story‘s told…I’ve always been a hard working woman. Worked in manufacturing factories over 30 years, a single mother of adult twin sons with autism. It is my passion and my sons therapy to create a memorial Japanese garden in the space I call home. The photo shows where or how my injury occurred. I spent a week on this rental equipment moving dirt. We had built a pool and a deck and that was a two month job in itself. Between working in the factory bending over putting parts in boxes the size of refrigerators or king size beds. I don’t really know where or when it happened, except that I woke up one morning with a lightening bolt shooting down my buttock ,down the backside of my leg all the way to my ankle. I couldn’t say I did this at work, because I knew I had really been burning the candle at both ends 10 hours on the job, and working until dark when I got home, also the fact that I was past my 50’s and had been pushing every spare hour of daylight into my creation at home and have been since the COVID era began. Before that, I had A Yamaha 1100 cruiser and would hop on that thing to take a little ride for fun. When I spent a week on the rental dirt moving equipment, my knee swelled like a football. I was working at a car manufacturing plant at the time when my knee swelled, I couldn’t squat anymore. I saw an orthopedic who told me my squatting days were over. I took another job, but this one required bending over at the waist to box parts. Easy enough, but my gait was impaired and I walked with a slight limp. I suppose this gave way for my spine to become distorted, because I found myself visiting another orthopedic, this time for my back. I had learned through an MRI that I had indeed degerative disc disease, in which surgery was recommended to repair disc that were pressing on a nerve that was giving me constant electric pain. He also informed me that infusion surgery would be needed thereafter. I ask about injections and it wasn’t his recommendation. I said no thank you to surgery and went home to self treat this injury. Heating pads, ice packs, Ben gay, I even got in the freezing pool water to ice from the waist down several times in months of January. My employer had added Regenex to their benefits package and I thought what have I got to lose? Nothing else worked for long term relief and every day was living in the same constant pain. There were several steps to this process, and suppose they were a requirement to insurance, after about 5 visits to the clinic, when the procedure was done, I went home to recover for ONE day, and then went back to work the second day and I have been pain free in that area every since. This month has been TWO Full years of living without that awful tormentor's pain. The procedure was to take 14 vials of my blood, spin it to plasma, and inject it between the discs to regenerate growth back into the area that had degenerated. Incredibly, it worked…I had to refrain from taking aspirin product for a month or so prior to doing this and maybe some time afterward, that was hard, because I had developed an addiction to goodys powders for pain management, as it was the only thing that gave me some relief. Two years later, I still work with my sons on various plantings and projects and maintenance of our gardens. But I am aware of my limitations and am so grateful to be relieved of the constant pain that I lived with for more than 10 months that is completely gone away, I will not soon forget this experience and am not taking that for granted by doing something stupid, and have altered my lifestyle a bit to not work quite so hard and to now spend more time admiring and enjoying the smell of the delicate flowers which serve as a reminder of how fragile and precious our bodies truly can be.