IdaSpence’s Profile

About Me

It all started with a fall from a mountain bike in Yucatan, while I was with my Girl Scouts for their big trip to celebrate 12 years together. I fell off of my bike less than 5 seconds away from the finish of a fabulous 2 hour ride. I crash into my daughters bike because she did not hear me tell her to go into the hacienda gate. The bike between my legs, her bike on top of me. She tried to pull me up but I knew something was wrong and asked her to let me just get up on my own. I could feel something in my right elbow moving around and lots of pain. I did not know at the time, that the injuries were more intense than 1st diagnosed. It had taken us 2 hours to get to this beautiful hacienda and I still faced another 2 hours of grueling pain to get back to the boat. I am a level II first aider but I never thought I would be taking care of myself, especially when I got back to the boat. The first thing I asked coming into the boat was where the infirmary was and they were not concerned that I had an obvious injury. They still wanted me to go through the metal detector and do the stuff to get back onto the boat. My daughter was carrying my things but she could not help because she was needing to do the same thing. Finally some nice cruise security guard saw I was in trouble. He worked with me and got me to the infirmary. Walking in the staff was not too friendly, they asked me how much I have had to drink and I had to explain that I was not drunk and I had taken a nasty fall and I had pretty much assessed myself and tied my arm to my body. They wanted to take me off the boat and get me to the nearest hospital but that meant leaving my girls and being guaranteed that I would make it back to the boat. I refused to leave the girls and they did their best to help me but they could not give me any pain meds or do any xrays. I was in a foreign country andI was still 3 days out from the states so I would have to wait to see someone when I got home. I taped my arm to my body and did the best I could to take care of myself and try to enjoy the rest of my trip. We finally got to Galveston and the boat allowed me to leave first because they made an appointment for me at the emergency room nearby. I went in with extremely high blood pressure and a chipped elbow. I was unaware, I had damaged my rib cage and spinal column. But this is not the end of my story, taking the advice of my emergency room doc, I went to see my regular physician. He was more helpful but I had chest pain and difficulty breathing. He chalked it up to the injury. This went on for more than a year, I would go in with some strange illness, do test, then he would say I had the flu or broncitis, asthma, COPD, pancratitus, kidney problems, and this one was the best. I had anerexic tendencies. I was getting worse and worse and no one seemed to know what to do. Finally, I was at my moms for a party, she lives 4 hours away from home. I was light headed and achy, nausea and miserable. Chest pains and just not myself. I felt like my shoulders were sitting in my ears. We went home, thinking maybe I was getting the flu again and drove home. I was still sick the next day and worse, the only other worse thing was that my doctor could not see me. So I want to a med clinic and the doc's their told me something was really wrong with me, they did not know what but that I needed to get to the hospital ASAP. My ambulance ride was horrific but once their the staff at the hospital did everything they could to see what was going on. They sedated me and made me comfortable. Test were goig to be done until they could tell me what was wrong. Next day before noon, I was told that I had a very large PE in my right lung and that I have had it for quite sometime. They kept me in the hospital for 7 days and started me on the stomach shots of coumadin. I still ask, why it took so long to be diagnosed and no one and still give me an answer. They also explained that with my age and that I was on birth control, that all factors could have caused this to happen to me. I considered myself a very active person and now I struggle each day to survive. I was put on this earth to a achieve something, I as saved to be on this earth to really achieve something big. I take things one day at a time now but I stop and tell the my family and friends how much I love them. I will get to go kayaking and canoeing again. I will get to hike and camp again. I just need to learn to manage it. Patience is a good word, I have it for others I just do not have it for myself.

Interests

Kayaking, Canoeing, hiking, camping, rock climbing, zip lining, dancing, sewing, and just spending time with my children