I am 18 years old and I have RSD in my entire left leg. I’ve had it for over two years and I can honestly say that I’m a fighter. I try to carry on a normal teenage life, but it’s really difficult. Where I live, there is no real specialist to see. They have tried just about everything and I have wanted to give up too many times.
I first started having trouble when I broke my left leg while trying to jump a fence to get my puppy. I thought, “Oh darn!” I’ve broken just about everything you can break and I just thought, oh well another one to chalk up to my list of injuries. But this one was so different. It never really healed.
They did surgeries and that gave me a glimmer of hope. When I came out the surgeries, I was always told that they went beautifully and that I would be back to running in no time. But nothing went well. I was in pain all of the time. I would spend hours in my bedroom with spasms running up and down my leg with my mom and my brother trying to calm my tears. This was just the start of what was to come.
I kept going to doctors and they told me so many things like I was just an attention seeker, I was crazy, I was playing a mind game—you name it, I was called it.
So I went to a local doctor who said RSD. When those words came out of his mouth, my life just seemed to end. He told me that it wasn’t curable. And I wondered WHY ME?!? Nobody had seen it in a young person so they used everything. Epidural catheter in my lumbar spine twice, meds, therapy—you name it, I’VE DONE IT!
I was getting better after going to a local medical center and seeing a specialist, but all that went out the window just lately. I don’t know why, but it’s come back with a vengeance.
I just want a normal teenage life. RSD may wear on me emotionally and physically, but I am so determined and a fighter. I WILL live with this and meet all of my goals as a Firefighter/EMT. I know this for sure. I am completing my EMT right now. I did all the physical stuff, so I’m living proof you can do it! Don’t doubt, always try, and believe…