Lady Penelope Strongbow has her very own CRPS mission.

It’s a personal mission. Things tend to be on a personal level when you suffer from this disease.

CRPS takes over your life.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome changes your life. However, Lady Penelope Strongbow would like to think that somewhere along the line just maybe, perhaps, her story might help others, or at least give them a moment’s amusement when they read her story.

(You can read why I call myself Lady Penelope Strongbow in my previous CRPS post.)

It began last December. Just before Christmas and all the stores were full of pretty things. She had just returned her shopping trolley to the bay and was walking back toward her car when she heard a lot of shouting.

I wonder what people are shouting for? she wondered.

Then, blackout. Just like that. The lights went out and there was pain like you wouldn’t believe.

Someone had reversed his car into her making her fall and causing two breaks to her wrist and forearm and a very sore head where it had bounced on the concrete parking lot.

The cast was enormous.

CRPS began almost immediately. When the upper part of the cast was removed, the Lady Penelope fingers were already in evidence and the pain affected the whole arm, elbow and shoulder.

CRPS had already set in, but the diagnosis wasn’t given until the rest of the cast was removed.

Three painful CRPS months later

It took three whole months to work out pain relief that didn’t cause me to vomit or give me diarrhoea or space me out so far I didn’t know which way was up.

By this time , we had various test results. The echograph (like ultrasound) showed no serious tears in the soft tissue, but lots of inflammation.

The scintigraph (bone scan) came next. The bone scanner machine is as futuristic as Thunderbirds used to be.

Lady Penelope was suitably impressed.

Results of the hand/wrist scan show where CRPS is affecting the bones.

You can see how every part of my wrist and fingers is affected.

That’s why I have a Lady Penelope hand.

That’s why, like her, I can’t open doors.

 

It’s why when I put my left hand on top of my head, it looks like this –

And when you’ve got a CRPS Lady Penelope hand, you’d better forget about opening that pack of doughnuts.

Squeezing the packet between my thumb and forefinger is all I can do with my Lady Penelope hand.

In my next post, I’ll have information about the treatment I’m receiving.

There’s a lot of treatment. Every day. As I’ve already said, CRPS takes over your life.

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Till next time,