My Journey with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

"On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."

- Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

May

An update is long overdue.

First of all I've been doing pretty well. Still going to PT twice a week. My quad is improving and I'm finally able to gain some strength. I'm still having significant back discomfort which is limiting me in PT. I'm focusing more on core strength to stabilize and hopefully help calm down my back issues.

It took a spill the other day, falling and landing with almost all of my weight on my knee. The good news is that my knee stayed in place and everything, but I'm having some pain posterior to my knee cap (patella tendon insertion area). I'm surprised with how good I still feel considering the fall.

I'm still trucking along in PT and will continue to do so until I'm able to be more active. My therapist thinks I might be able to be done with PT by this summer, so we'll see.

On an EDS note..
This month is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome awareness month! I hope everyone reading this blog knows a thing or two about EDS now. But, in case you don't, or just need a reminder; EDS is a rare connective tissue disorder, dealing with a collagen dysfunction. Collagen is in just about everything in your body; bones, ligaments, tendons, blood vessels, organs and skin. EDS causes hypermobile and unstable joints, fragile blood vessels and organs, as well as heart complications. There is no cure for EDS and no specialized treatment. Most doctors don't know about EDS or have never seen a patient with EDS before.

The EDS National Foundation is working on more and more research, especially with the vascular components of EDS. It's interesting to see even in the three years since I've been diagnosed how much more they've learned and how many more research projects are going on today.

My goal as a patient with EDS is just to simply spread the word. If I can teach just one person, or make just one more medical professional aware of EDS that's all that matters. And even more importantly, if I would be to prevent just one patient from going through the long drawn out journey that I had to go through to get diagnosed by simply telling my story, then that's just what I'm going to do.



1 comment:

  1. Hey girl, keep working on PT and being active. For you and many others I am running a 5K May 22. Any expectations or challenges anyone wants to offer?

    Take care, Barb

    ReplyDelete