An easter to remember

My neck has just done it's most bizzare and slightly worrying thing again. First it clunks then I can't move my head and my arms and hands are going tingly and rapidly losing strength. The first time this happened it was rather alarming, now it's just something else I've got used to and which I haven't even tried to tell my doctor because I'd just get that 'this person is obviously in need of a psychologist for her imaginary problems' look. The first time it happened I suppose i should've used what strength I had left in my arms and hands to phone an ambulance but that of course would be sensible and I am not sensible. So what I did was with great effort move my arms to get a hand one each side of my head pull up a bit then move my head about until my neck clunked again. It worked, strength returned to my arms and hands and the tingling soon disappeared but why is my neck doing this? Well it's all down to a car accident.

Almost 4 years ago my grandad had drove to my mums house where I live and was driving me to his house for my Sunday dinner. My grandparents are great I almost always used to go to them for Sunday dinner. It was easter and as a special treat we were having duck which I hadn't had for years so were really looking forward to. Back then I didn't have a diagnosis and although my knees were hurting more I had few problems apart from a subluxing/dislocating jaw and my left shouder dislocating more and more frequently but still only about once a month.

The car in front of us went round a corner and theirs a petrol station just round that corner, you can't see it until it's almost too late. So the car in front braked quite hard when it saw the petrol station obviously deciding to go and get some fuel. This wasn't a problem as my grandad was far enough behind him to brake in time but the car behind us didn't brake and ploughed straight into us.

Now my grandad used to be known for fighting so when he got out of the car whilst I were still trying to figure out whether i'd hurt anthing apart from my shouder which had dislocated I thought I'd better get out before he started thumping people! I did manage to calm him down quite quickly and then saw that the passenger in the car that hit us was sat holding her neck and looking as though she was in a fair amount of pain so I tried to get the traffic speeding along the busy road to slow so I could dash across to the petrol station and get someone to call an ambulance, running with a dislocated shoulder is not a good idea! So after getting a member of staff in the petrol station to call an ambulance I thought I'd better go back over the road to keep an eye on my grandad. Just as I were walking out of the petrol station i thought 'ouch my neck hurts a bit too oh well it can't be anything much or I'd have felt it sooner'

So I got back over the road and waited for the ambulance and they were amazed when they came to me to start with cos I were holding my arm and I just calmly said 'oh I'm ok it's only a dislocated shoulder it's the lady in that car needs your help more' after my experiences with other medical people I were expecting to be told I hadn't dislocated my shoulder because I'd be in alot more pain if I had but no I were asked if I wanted to sit down. I didn't because I knew my knees would get stiff so I just kept wandering around.

Once they'd seen to the passenger in the other car they got to me and after a quick look at my shoulder agreed that it was dislocated then asked if I had any pain elsewhere. By this time my neck was getting rather painful but I didn't want to make a fuss about something that was probably nothing really so I said my neck was aching a little bit. All of a sudden it was 'stand still! Don't move! How much have you been moving around?'
me: well I ran across the road to call you guys for that lady and then ran back across and I've been wandering around since then so that my knees don't get stiff'
'You did WHAT??!?!'
So some people may have panicked then espcially when the neck brace and spinal board were brought out but they assured me it was just a precaution and I did actually feel like I could trust them which with how much I've been messed about by medical people they must've been pretty damn good to be able to put me at ease! Had a nice chat in the ambulance too on the way to the hospital and I seemed to be actually being listened to which for me seemed quite a novelty!

However once I got to the hospital I were waiting hours for x rays and when my mum got there a few hours later (she took awhile because she went to my grandparents house to eat the dinner that I missed out on) I found out why a machine kept bleeping at me. Apparently my heart rate kept going from the 70's up to 150 but no one had bothered to come and see if their was something wrong and when a nurse finally turned up and my mum asked her about it the nurse simply turned it off!
I put my shouder back in joint myself long before I were told the results of my x rays. Apparently my neck was fine but my shoulder was dislocated so they would sort that out for me soon. The doctor then got rather annoyed with me when I said no need to do anything to my shoulder I put it back in joint myself over an hour ago. I were then allowed to go home and were told my neck should be fine in a few weeks.

I had no problems at all with my neck before that accident but since then it's crunched, cracked and most worryingly clunked. So I'm beginning to wonder whether whoever looked at the x rays of my neck was wrong and actually it was more than whiplash but it's something I'll probably never find out so for now I just keep my mobile phone with me at all times incase one day when I try to clunk my neck back it doesn't work