Would you really want to know?

I smashed my knee in a hard tackle over two weeks ago. I was on crutches for over a week and couldn't drive for nearly two weeks. For me, the main thing is I won the tackle and consequently, my team won the game.

A fracture has been ruled out but with continuing pain, I went to see my physio. He has been a physio for the Australian Olympic and Commonwealth Games teams so I trust him implicitly. He also mistook me for my mum a few months ago. Last time he saw my mum, she was around my age so that's how long he's been tending to the muscles and joints of my family.

Well I saw my physio today and I explained my injury. He asked some questions, as they do and I mentioned that while my knee is sore and has been slow to improve, my foot on the same limb has been really cold. I told him it actually turned purple on the first night after the injury occurred. He seemed a bit taken aback by that and reached down to touch my feet. I was telling him about this as I was taking my Converse sneakers off - that's what reminded me to mention my foot. He pulled back. I assumed they didn't feel any different as both feet had literally just come out of shoes. He told me my right foot was definitely much more cold than the other foot. But he offered no explanation.

As I was lying on the table and my physio was massaging my leg, I asked if he had any theories as to why my foot would be so damn cold. I asked because at the time, my right foot was so cold that it was hurting. He seemed reluctant to answer and started talking about  my sympathetic nervous system. None of this made much sense to me.

Suddenly I thought I was cottoning on to what he was saying and my heart sank like a stone. "Are you telling me this is all in my head?" He insisted he wasn't and upon deciding he hadn't convinced me he told me he thinks it is "Complex regional pain syndrome". He provided a brief explanation about nerves and laughed when he told me it is very rare and he said as soon as he thought of it and how rare it was, he thought if someone was going to have this syndrome, it would be me. Thanks(!).

But then my physio did something I didn't expect. He explicitly stated that I was not to google it. He repeated his direction many times, insisting reading about CRPS would scare me. He told me I could tell my medical profession based friend about it because she wasn't aware of any possible cause but I absolutely was not to google it myself. But his explanation did not offer my any real reason why my foot is cold. And he told me that if I read about it I would become worried. Worried about what?

So what would you do?

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Have a think about it.

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Put yourself in my position.

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Decided what you would do yet?

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I think I did what most everyone would do. I burned the words into my mind and googled the heck out of the condition the second I sat in the car.

Chronic regional pain syndrome

It's not good. Nothing about what I've read is good. The article opened with "...is a chronic progressive disease characterized by severe pain, swelling and changes in the skin." and didn't get much better from there. I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry and then drive home like a zombie. Obviously I haven't been formally diagnosed and even if I do have the disease, there is a small chance the syndrome can cease it's progression and go into remission. But since as I type this, my right foot is again so cold it's hurting, I'm still afraid.

But what would you do? Would you really want to know?

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions

• What would you do in my position?
• How and how long would it take for you to make your decision?
• Have you ever been in the position to decide if you wanted to know something bad?
• What did you do?