March 18th changed my life forever. Dr. Annamalai Ashokan gave me an epidural, supposedly. It was done incorrectly, in an unsterile environment, and I truly do not believe he injected steroids into my back.
He was at a normal basic primary clinic, pain management, which is where epidural injections fall under, was not listed under their practice. I naively saw him in a room and showed him my back, which I assumed he was going to poke and prod like most doctors always seem to do.
I had copies of my MRI's and x-rays with me, but suddenly I felt a cool spray, I asked what it was, and he said it would help numb. Epidurals go into your spine, a spray numbs skin. Before I could begin to say "What the f*** is going on?!" I felt a needle slide into my back. The pain was explosive.
He told me, "That stick, don't use that stick." His horrible English referring to my cane, and he left. It took me minutes before I could gather senses enough to leave the room. It felt like things had been displaced. The man had no idea that I even had an extra vertebrae, God and he only knows where he injected me.
The first step on my feet was agony. It felt as if someone had gone and poured acid down my spine, and down the nerve roots passing through the L4-L5 and L5-S1 pathways. I folded my cane up and staggered to the lobby, each step gasping for air through my pain.
I got only ten feet before I collapsed and began to scream in agony, I could no longer hide it. My ex boyfriend of 6 1/2 years who had taken me was very angry, demanding what had been done to me. I had come for a consultation for pain management, why was I limping out and now crumpled on the floor screaming.
The front staff wanted to actually call an ambulance. Their own doctor had done enough damage to me, that they wanted me to seek emergency care from the hospital! I now can see why he no longer works there. It took an hour before I was finally strong enough to limp to the car, with help of my cane and my ex.
Now, those copies of MRI's I had are quite interesting. At my L3-L4 level, the disc protrusion was 4mm, L4-L5 a 5mm protrusion, and L5-S1 and 4/5mm protrusion, as of early 2012. I have a long list of doctor reports of me going in, pain level being the same every time. Blood pressure the same every time. For a year and three months there is no change in my pain or in anything, except that the pain won't go away, and that is a problem.
Until March 18th. I expected to hurt very badly for at least a week, as I had had two epidurals previously in 2011, and they just made me sore for a month, but this was different. On the 29th of March I discovered that could not urinate, at all. I had to go to the emergency room to be alleviated. Then again on April 2cd, on a doctor's visit they had to catheter me.
I remember hearing Linda Rubino, a PAC, arguing with my county insurance over the phone that I did not have a UTI (urinary tract infection), that there was something seriously wrong, that I needed to be seen by someone to check my back immediately. When they had checked the reflexes in my knees and ankles, they were very weak.
I had no idea permanent nerve damage was taking place as I overheard her frantic phone call.
So today I received the medical records for when I was admitted to my local hospital after trying to take a walk, collapsing after losing sensation and ability to move my legs, and being admitted because I couldn't walk, and my knees and ankles had no reflexes.
They did an MRI, and when I saw it, my jaw dropped. It was apparent I needed surgery immediately. Today I got that report. My L3-L4 disc remained 4mm, L4-L5 disc went from 5mm to 11cm, and L5-S1 remained 5mm. Now how on earth did that single disc, and the other discs remain the same, fall out of place twice as much as it was?
The protrusion at the L4-L5 was so severe it left 5-7mm in my spinal canal for my spinal cord. Whereas elsewhere there was 17mm of space normally. Of course the doctor did not tell me that my spinal cord was being crushed, along with my nerves, but well, I could feel the nerves. I saw the MRI image and instead of seeing the disc poking out of place and then the canal, it was one solid mass.
It took until June 5th to get my surgery. Afterwards I was on a Dilaudid IV for pain and was able to walk within days. I was discharged within days. Soon I was nearly back to where I had been before March, just with more aches and pains, but then I got a post surgical infection and suffered trauma that no one should suffer.
I called my wonderful, great and caring surgeon, Dr. Herman, because I was running a fever over 100 degrees, and I take a prescription NSAID (anti-inflammatory, like Advil or Motrin but a lot stronger) and I still had a fever, so that was alarming. I was put into an isolation ward for 2 days at VCMC. That was when by definition of "California Penal Code 289 PC" I was raped, by "forcible penetration with a foreign object."
It took me until today to actually speak to someone at the hospital about it, and they are going to look into it. It was a simple pelvic exam turned into a nurse taking her anger out on me as I was crying and begging her to stop, because it hurt so badly. I hadn't seen myself bleed that much except for the time I accidentally sliced my thumb open cooking, or gotten into a bicycling accident. Then she angrily left me alone there, and I felt too shamed to tell the next nurse who came in what had occurred, because I felt embarrassed and the nurse was so chipper.
Why take up a job in the medical field if you are just wanting to hurt people?
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