SCARY MOMENTS IN REHAB!

Editor’s Note: Tara Llanes is recording her progress in rehab at the Craig Hospital in Denver as she continues to recover from the spinal cord injuries she suffered in a mountain bike race in Colorado on September 1. Below is the latest update she has posted to her MySpace page. She’s been blogging about her recovery since September 23rd. All of her blogs, new photos of her recovery and many, many good wishes can be found at: 

http://myspace.com/mtbtara

Her family, friends, and supporters are urging those folks who want to help contribute to a special fund set up for Tara’s recovery to visit:

www.tarallanesroadtorecovery.com

TARA'S REHAB UPDATE – 10/10/2007
Hey everyone. I really meant to write yesterday, but yesterday was one of the scariest days of my life. For some reason for the past 5 days or so I've been having these really gnarly sort of muscle twitches. I'm not sure how many of you have heard of Restless Leg Syndrome, but I've been getting them in my upper body. So far I've been able to get them under control a bit so that is good.

So yesterday my Dr. wanted to get a couple more tests done to figure out why I was getting so nauseous. The first one at 8:30am went just fine and once again clean as a whistle. My next test was scheduled for 12:30pm and I wasn't allowed to eat anything from midnight the night before until after the 12:30 test. So by that time I was already starving and irritable. So they came to get me around noon to take me over the Hospital connected to Craig. Just as they were transferring me in to the other bed I started to get that sort of restless syndrome in my upper body. I totally thought I could just relax and get rid of it, but exactly the opposite happened. It got worse. WAY worse! They pulled me into the prep area for procedures and just sort of left me there for a minute. Meanwhile I was seriously having some issues. I basically couldn't control my upper body at all. I was holding onto the railing of the bed and I swear I could have ripped the damn thing out! My Mom asked for the nurse to come over and help, but they just sort of looked at me like they didn't know what to do, which worried me even more. By this time I had been having these insane muscle contractions for about 15-20 minutes with no help from all 3 nurses standing right there. On top of that they kept walking away. I could see in my Mom's eyes how scared she was and I was feeling the same way. My Mom finally just followed the nurse until she called a doctor because something was definitely wrong. I just remember so many things going through my mind. Like, "is someone going to help me", “why is my tongue numb", why can't I control my body", etc.

Finally, my Mom made the nurse at the hospital call my regular nurse at Craig and she came straight over. Immediately when she got there she knew something was really wrong. She just grabbed my hands and kept telling me to look at her. She was having to practically yell at me because I wasn't responding that great. The whole time this was happening I kept thinking that I was having super gnarly withdrawals from getting off some of the strong meds I had been on. They had taken me off of them cold turkey a couple days before and with my consent. I mean I didn't want to keep taking all that crap. I wanted it out of my body ASAP, so I was all for it. By this time my withdrawals or whatever I thought was happening had been going on for about 30 minutes and I needed someone to help me. I was hyperventilating

So my regular nurse at Craig took control over the situation thank gawd and got me back to Craig. I didn't even remember the ride back. But as soon as we got back she gave me something to calm me down. Normally because of my size I only get 1 milligram, but this time I got 2 milligrams, which is a lot for me at once plus a valium. It took that much to get things under control. Finally my tongue, head, arms, and hands weren't numb and I was slowing my breathing down to normal. The whole time I was holding some of the staff’s hands to just squeeze something and I was squeezing so hard I think THEY lost some feeling in their hands! :)

As I was starting to come down they took my vital signs and as it turns out it looked like a combination of things. Number one: I wasn't able to eat for about 13-14 hours until all the tests were done and anybody that knows me and how I need to eat every hour to two hours knows that I was probably in a not so great mood before I even got there. Number two: my blood pressure as they were still bringing me down was, like, 147 over 50 something, which proves that I was having an crazy anxiety attack. Normally my blood pressure is super low like 90 over 60. It was still hard for me to believe I had an anxiety attack because I wasn't worried one bit about the test. Some of it was definitely because of my low blood sugar. Either way I felt like I was going through some kind of insane withdrawal and I was scared out of my head.

But hey...look at the bright side. I didn't throw up today!! WooHoo!

Thank goodness it finally ended and I just relaxed and got things back to normal. I am so thankful of my Mom making those people call my nurse Angie and then to Angie for knowing exactly what to do.

Today was a bit better. My back is really hurting today, but I know it’s simply because of how much stress I put it through yesterday with all my muscles tightening and what not. Hopefully the pain will subside in the next day or so. Today I went to my FES bike class where I they hook your legs up to electrodes and you are able to ride a bike and then I also went to my PT class and did some hard work there. Right now it's getting late once again and I NEED to go to bed. My body needs some extra rest.

Thank all of you for reading. Also, I want to thank the Giant guys for coming in to see me today and yesterday. It was great to see you. Another huge thanks goes out to Troy Lee Designs for the sweet jerseys to auction, the awesome card, and the signature watch being sent to raffle off. Even more “thank yous” to Fox Racing Shox for supporting the Sandhill Ranch fundraiser race with product and also to Michelin. I'm sure I'm missing a ton of people, but just know that I appreciate everything all of you have done.

One last thing: I have all of the raffle tickets that my coach James had collected at Interbike for the pit bike and I am going to pull a name out of the hate early next week once James gets back from Europe. So I just wanted everyone to know. The winner will be posted on the MySpace page so keep checking to see if you won the SUWEET pit bike that Michelin Tires donated. Thank you once again to Michelin.

Cheers!