Muscle Spasms, Tendonitis or Whatever the Heck is Wrong

Last week, I was having some intermittent leg pain. I complained to the hubby and he tried to get me to go to the doctor. I decided to wait it out, because I've had various pains in the past that go away after some time.

On Friday night, after my son's baseball game, we were heading to the van to go back to the in-law's house and my leg started to really hurt. By the time we reached the van, I was limping.

A few hours later, the pain was pretty bad. My mother-in-law had some Darvocet left over from a dental visit. Neither of us is into medicine and we rarely have any in the house. "Give it to me," I told her. The pain was intense at that point and I was ready to down a bottle of tequila.

I went to bed and tried to do some hypno-breathing to work through the pain. I figured it was a charley horse of some type and would subside soon.

It didn't. The pain became worse, a sharp searing pain. I couldn't bend to get out of bed. My leg was numb from the hip down to the knee and knotted in pain. I'm no wimp when it comes to pain-- heck, I birthed my youngest kid at home and that pain was nothing like this. I crawled to the van and we headed off to the hospital.

Joe and I debated whether or not to get an interpreter. I was in so much pain and I figured if we asked for one, they would delay treatment until the interpreter arrived. So we decided not to. The staff at Palos hospital was really indifferent to providing pain relief. X-rays and an ultrasound ruled out thrombosis and clots. It took hours to be seen by a doctor, who gave me all of two minutes and proclaimed it a muscle spasm.

While in the bathroom, I tried to get up and fell to the floor. I was doubled over in so much pain and couldn't get up. I hit the nurse call button and waited. And waited. And waited. No one came. I finally hollered out, "Can someone please help me!" and then the door opened. Several nurses helped me up.

I ended up with a shot, Vicodin, Motrin and Valium and was still in pain. "There's nothing more we can do for you" they said as they gave me crutches and wheeled me out the door. On the way out, I tried to explain that I was extremely thirsty and quite dehydrated. Maybe an IV with fluids would help, I inquired? They rolled a finger over the veins in my hand and said, "No, you're fine."

So for two days, I took three different pills and didn't get much relief.

At home, looking up "muscle spasms" I discovered that they can indeed be triggered by dehydration as well as low calcium and potassium levels. A follow up visit to my regular doctor had him guessing tendonitis and admitting that he really didn't know what was wrong. He prescribed more powerful pain meds. My purse now looks like a hypochondriac's collection of orange bottles.

I jokingly told my husband that I should have stuck to the idea of hitting the tequila instead.