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The foot, encased in my ski boot, flopped over sideways at a 90 degree angle from my leg.  Boot buckles flat on the snow, the rest of the leg facing forward.  It was this incongruity that captured my attention, not the pain.  That was yet to come.

The trip from the very top of the mountain to the infirmary at the base was not particularly painful or stressful, but it was long.  I considered the irony as I stared up at the sky, strapped to the toboggan.  Every run at Lake Louise is a long one – that was a selling feature for us when we purchased our season’s passes.  It seems we had not foreseen every way that that could play out.

Pain first registered – loud and clear – upon arrival at the bottom of the hill.  A stabbing bolt of pain overwhelmed me as the patrollers unloaded me from the meat wagon and helped me to a bed in the first aid room.  And I was cold, so cold.

Then the boot had to come off.  That boot, snug and stiff by design so that I could carve beautiful turns in the powder.  So difficult to get my foot in and out of at the best of times.  That boot had to come off.  Now.  And worst of all, no drugs.  Nothing for the pain. Not until the ambulance came.

When the paramedics (pair of medics I remember thinking) arrived, the nice man with the drugs asked me, “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being almost no pain and 10 being the most pain you have ever experienced, what is your pain level?” To which I replied, “What number is morphine? – that’s my number.” Lucky number 7.

Four ambulance rides, three hospitals, one surgery and two weeks later, I was home and on the long road to recovery. Pain was my constant companion, percocet my first line of defence.

It’s easy to understand how people get hooked on percocet. It is a loyal and calming friend, taking away your pain and anxiety.  Until you are no longer able to move your bowels.  I can’t help but think that people who are addicted to percocet must also be addicted to laxatives.

So now I couldn’t walk or poo.  And I desperately needed to restore some normalcy in my life.  After a month of daily doses of pain relief, I quit taking anything for pain.  Three long painful days, during which I tried to distract myself with books, music, even rug-hooking.  Or I  simply watched the snow fall from my cozy perch in front of the living room window.  I wondered how much longer I could manage.  Then I realized I was managing. And it was only going to get better from there.

Finally, my surgeon gave me permission to start weight-bearing – the moment I had been waiting for.  Now it would be up to me.  I would be walking in no time, I told myself.  I was strong and determined and I was pretty good at managing pain.  Just watch me.

This is the point at which I learned what frustration truly means. Screaming, crying, tantrum-inducing frustration.

I had picks on my crutches to help get me over ice and snow from the house to the car.  Then I had the handicapped parking to help me make it from the car to the pool.  A major struggle to remain upright while I pulled open the doors to the pool.  Then a wheelchair to get from the changing room into the pool.  And at last, buoyed by the water, I could walk – actually walk.  Just like a normal person.  I cried.

It felt so good to be walking, despite the pain.  Coming up the ramp into shallower water, however, my reality returned.  I couldn’t support my weight.  Not even close.  But I returned every day and celebrated small successes, always believing I would return to normal. It’s not like learning a new sport that you can simply decide is not for you after all.  You have to learn to walk again – you have to.

And not just walking but walking without a limp.  It’s unbelievably hard to relearn to walk without limping.  Even when it didn’t hurt, Leg (as I affectionately called her) just couldn’t do the smooth stride.  I walked for hours in my bathing suit in front of the full length mirror, monitoring my hips, feet, everything, as I corrected my stride.  I practiced my walk like a runway diva.  I progressed from crutches to cane. My mantra: no limp, no pain, no cane. I walked without a limp with the cane but simply couldn’t do the stride without it.

I longed to be normal again. I just wanted my life back. I didn’t want to be noticed when I went out in public – the comments people made cut like a knife.  This was the greatest test of resiliency.  I wrote in my journal: Do it anyway. When people say things you don’t want to hear, when it hurts, when you don’t think you’ll ever walk normally, when you’re scared, when you’re frustrated….  Do. It. Anyway.

It’s been a year since that fateful day that changed my leg and my life for good.  I am walking now without a limp (perhaps a small gait anomaly), and only a little discomfort which has been helped significantly by orthotics. And I am skiing once again.  Although I would never have wished such an experience upon myself, I dug deep to summon the strength and determination to pull me through.  I am so very proud of myself – the perseverance, the strength of character.  I rose to the challenge.  Also I am humbled.  Mostly, I am grateful.

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I was around 25 years old, just landing in South Korea to teach English for a few months, before my last semester of university.  I noticed, not for the first time, that my stomach was bothering me.  I didn’t give it much thought, since this always seemed to happen when I flew.  I assumed it was a normal part of a long flight with lousy food, lack of oxygen and hours of sitting in one place.  I also assumed that most people must bloat up and have pain the way I did.  The fact that it would take me days to get back to normal also never seemed odd to me, but just part of the stresses of travel.  I carried on.

Living in Asia was quite a shock to my system:  new sights, new smells, and new sounds.  The first few days, simply adjusting to my surroundings was challenge enough, never mind being thrown into a classroom of kindergarteners, all looking to me for direction!  I had never taught in my life and these beautiful little children were all waiting on what I would say next.  Oh my!  The fact that my intestines were gurgling all the time must surely be due to the stress of my new role, my new life in Korea, and not anything more serious than that.  Right?

And so it went. The two months in Korea passed fairly smoothly.  I got used to my new job, began to enjoy the children and got more comfortable in the classroom.  My stomach rumblings would come and go but were always worst on Friday nights when a group of teachers and I would head down to the local pub for a few pitchers of beer along with some Ojingah or dried squid.  But hey, everybody bloats when they drink beer right?  At the end of the summer, I decided I really liked living in South Korea and I loved teaching.  So I signed up for another year, went home to finish my last semester of university, then flew straight back, bloating in tow.

After two years abroad, I returned to Canada, and my digestive problems had not improved.  It got to the point where I was embarrassed to travel or sleep at other people’s houses because I never knew when or where an attack would happen.  I called them attacks at this point because I had finally consulted a doctor, who diagnosed me with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).  “What can I DO about IBS?” I asked.  “Try to relax,” he suggested.  “Stress exacerbates it.  There is a drug we can give you if you want.  It’s an anti-depressant.”

An anti-depressant to treat a digestive problem?  This felt like a slap in the face!  I knew that I was not depressed – at least, not more so than might be expected for someone who was in constant pain.  But at any rate, whatever mood-related symptoms I felt, I knew they were caused by the digestive symptoms, and not the other way around.  The problem was not in my head.

Yet the doctor – a leading gastroenterologist – offered me nothing to treat or even validate my physical complaints.  He did no tests.  In fact, he barely examined me – palpating my stomach briefly and asking a couple of questions – before pronouncing “IBS” and sending me on my way.  Over the years, I consulted other doctors, who were generally not substantially more insightful than this first one.

I bought several books on IBS, surfed the internet looking for answers, tweaked my diet here and there, but never came to a complete solution.  I could improve things slightly, but results were inconsistent, and overall, I still suffered.  The closest I came to a solution was the year I went to a naturopath.  He really listened to me and recommended some fairly radical changes to my diet, including removing wheat.   The only problem – I now realize in hindsight – was that I was still eating other gluten containing grains like kamut, rye, and spelt.  So I was part way to a solution, but it would be years (12 to be exact) before I came to my own conclusion that I have celiac disease.

Celiac is an auto-immune disorder where your body attacks the villi in the lower intestine whenever gluten-containing grains are ingested.  The short-term effects of this can range from minor inconveniences like pain, bloating, diarrhea, to more severe symptoms such as headaches, dizziness and vomiting.  In the longer term, however, the effects of the disorder can be very detrimental because the body’s ability to absorb nutrients is drastically reduced by virtue of the villi being damaged or even destroyed.  If undiagnosed or untreated, sufferers can end up with joint damage, bone damage, organs that no longer function properly, failure to grow to one’s full potential (if the disease manifests early in life), and even cancer in worst-case scenarios.

It is not known why some people who carry the gene anomalies responsible for celiac develop the disorder early on, while others never develop it, or develop it later in life as I did.  The tests for it are difficult and invasive and have a very high margin of error.  So finding out whether or not you are celiac is a feat in itself.  And, of course, there are dramatic lifelong dietary changes to make once you are diagnosed.

I am happy to report that, after taking matters into my own hands (genetic testing for celiac at my own expense done through a laboratory in the US) I now have a confirmed diagnosis.  I know, finally, what I am dealing with.  I had already begun a 100% gluten-free diet two years earlier on suspicion that this was my problem, and the fact that I felt better within one week of being on the diet fuelled my conviction that I was on the right track.  But it still took two years to figure out how to navigate my way to actual medical confirmation.

No one wants to be sick, or to be told that they have an illness that will never go away.  But when your body is telling you unequivocally that something is wrong, the need to understand what is going on can become too pressing to ignore.  Finally knowing with certainty what I suffer from, and having validation that there is a real, physiological cause, is immeasurably valuable to me.  It gives me control of my life.

Today, I adhere to a strict gluten-free diet and my problem is essentially gone, regardless of my stress levels.  This is a miracle, in a way.  But in another way, it didn’t have to be, because all I ever needed was to know what I had to change to make myself feel better.

My purpose with this story is to hopefully help others facing similar challenges.  My message is simple: be persistent!  Pay attention to what your body tells you.  We are all stressed to some degree in our lives, and of course that does affect our health.  But if your problem is persistent and you feel unwell often, believe in yourself and what you feel.  Don’t accept that it is just stress when signs indicate that there is something more going on.  Keep pushing and searching for answers.  I am so glad I did.