Welcome back to The Crippled Cryptid-
A cozy corner of the internet where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and everyday magic all sit at the same table. This is a space built on honesty, humor, advocacy, and the beautifully chaotic reality of living in a haunted meat-suit that doesn’t always cooperate.
Whether you’re here for education, solidarity, or a safe place to set your bones down and breathe, I’m glad you found your way back. Pull up a chair, grab something warm, and let’s dive in together.
⚠️ Content & Trigger Warnings
Car accident, injury, medical trauma, medical gaslighting, chronic pain, seizure mention, pet loss, disability-related fear, hospitals, medical negligence, profanity.
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The Accident That Stole Our Night
If you’ve been here awhile, you know the Moss Maiden (M&M) and I were supposed to spend October 22nd wandering through China Lights in Milwaukee with the Yard Yeti- a sweet thank-you outing from my aunt.
Instead, we spent it in the ER.
We weren’t taking photos under lantern arches or eating overpriced snacks.
We were being triaged: M&M on a hospital bed after a seizure, me trying not to shake apart while adrenaline roared through my veins.
Our car was totaled.
Our bodies were battered.
Our plans replaced with chaos.
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The Moment That Won’t Leave Me
I keep replaying the turn.
The impact.
The screaming.
I yelled, “Fuck!”– the only word my brain could grab as my whole world tipped sideways.
M&M yelled, “Not again,” because we’ve been here before.
Back in 2023, we were t-boned in Chicago. That time we had a dashcam and proof. This time? Just “he said, she said.” And the impact was worse.
All the airbags went off.
M&M seized- close to a minute, maybe more. I refused to let them separate us in ambulances first and then the ER.
My leg got battered by the knee airbags. (Thanks, Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk… You’ve made a loyal customer out of us, #JeepGhoulsForever)
But it did its job: it kept us alive, even against someone going way too fast.
And the only thing going through my head since? I am so thankful we didn’t bring Luna with us that day. While we may have walked out alive- albeit worse for ware, she wouldn’t have. And thinking about losing her, after losing so much already, is more than I can handle.
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Then We Lost Bear
The accident was the 22nd.
On the 28th, we had to put Bear down. His legs had stopped working that Saturday. The vet gave us medication the previous Monday, saying it could just be arthritis or a pinched nerve. It helped- until it didn’t. And we made the hardest call of our lives.
My Scooby-Doo dog. My Charlie Brown dog. My grumpy old man.
We said goodbye while I was still limping around, trying to make sense of my leg. A day later, I tried to stand from my desk chair- the CRPS leg, of course, numb since the accident, was asleep and I didn’t know it yet. I stepped down, something crunched, and I crumpled like a paper bag.
Luna is still looking for her older brother: her guardian sentinel, her naptime partner, her squirrel-chasing co-conspirator. She’s starting to play again- finally- but his absence echoes through our home.
Without my car- my beloved Jeep Cherokee- we were stranded, at the mercy of either an ambulance (to an ER that mistreated me in the past) or an Uber that kept canceling. The next morning, we Ubered to the safe ER- the one I used to trust, until they insinuated M&M was hurting me instead of acknowledging the reality: a car accident, and an Ehlers-Danlos body that treats collagen like a suggestion.
(If you didn’t know- October is DV awareness month, and while I 100% understand and appreciate them asking if I was safe, what they did was not okay. Insinuating that my only support system had done this to me even after I had explained the car accident and everything else felt very much like a human rights issue, and a personal attack, and I’ll leave a link right here as to why it is no longer my favorite ER.)
X-rays said nothing was broken.
Maybe that would sound comforting- if I hadn’t lived through 2020, when “nothing broken” really meant:
- a nondisplaced intra-articular cuboid fracture
- an avulsion fracture along the lateral cuboid
- partial-thickness tears of the anterior talofibular and calcaneofibular ligaments
All of that was missed until I pushed through two ERs, repeat X-rays, one ortho who treated me like I was less than human, a CT, and an MRI. Not including the weeks of aggressive physical therapy, three pain management doctors, failed sympathetic nerve blocks, and two failed DRG stimulators.
And it’s what led to my CRPS diagnosis- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, where your nerves decide a minor injury means, “Cool. Let’s set the entire limb on fire forever.” So it feels a little unironic, and all too fitting that all of this would be going on during CRPS awareness month.
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Here We Go Again
The ER initially said, “nothing’s wrong,” then referred me to the same ortho who dismissed me in 2020. He only took me seriously after I recited all the fractures and tears he’d missed before. Suddenly everyone acted like I had “possible fracture symptoms.”
They wanted an MRI.
I didn’t trust them at that point because honestly? Why would I?
Five minutes before I bruised his ego, he was calling me “overdramatic” and saying I had a sprained ankle again. So, I think seeking out a second opinion was going to be a given.
I went to my pain management doctor- the one who knows my CRPS foot like it’s a character in a long-running series that everyone is watching because you see the trainwreck coming but, there’s nothing you can do to stop it, so you keep watching. The same way people here in the Midwest gather outside on porches when people say that there’s going to be a big storm or a tornado- do we run, hide, and seek shelter? No, we watch. He hated the way it looked: the bruising, swelling, color changes, temperature shift.
Honestly? Same. While he hated the way it looked, I hated the way it felt.
He wanted an MRI. Immediately.
I tried to be a good ghoul and go get one the same day while still in the hospital. It only made sense to me, my aunt had sent me $100 Uber Cash to go to the hospital for my appointment, and get looked at, what was the point in Ubering back out to that very same hospital at a later date for the MRI when I could do it while I was already there? Save everyone time and money.
And in the moment, I was pissed when it didn’t work out- and it might have saved my life.
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What the Hell Is a DRG Anyway, and Why Does It Matter?
A DRG (Dorsal Root Ganglion) Spinal Cord Stimulator is an implanted device used to treat nerve pain (especially CRPS). It has electrodes and hardware that must be fully removed before you can safely have an MRI.
Fun fact: I’ve technically had two of them:
- A 3-day trial (my original pain management doctor had me hopped up on Benedryl this whole time because I’m allergic to adhesives and had my family feeding me Tylenol and Advil like it was candy every 4-6 hours on top of that.)
- A full implant in 2021 (I lost track of how many reprogramming sessions we had but I can’t think of a single one that “helped” the way that it was meant to.)
- Removed and revised in 2022 because the battery “went bad” and the leads mysteriously “stopped working” they also added more leads at this time because the doctor thought that it would help better cover the area in which my pain was.
- Fully removed (allegedly) in 2024- all because the battery “went bad” again, the leads weren’t responding, and they’d all migrated to places they should never have been in the first place.
So, since I couldn’t have the MRI that same day earlier this week, I’d called and had one scheduled for December 11th. Before my December 11th MRI, the techs contacted Abbott and discovered parts of the DRG system were still inside me.
No one told me. No one documented it.
If I’d gone through with the MRI? I could have been seriously injured or worse.
So, when my pain doctor casually told me to “walk up the hall and get the MRI today if possible,” thinking back on it I nearly fell apart.
The only reason I’m okay is the hospital checked with the manufacturer and followed the proper protocol.
Which is why M&M and I have basically spent the day dissociating at the wall- leftover Chinese for lunch, lots of coffee, trying to squeeze in drinking water but, other than that? I don’t even know.
(And yes, if you’re wondering, I did try to get a hold of the doctor’s office the second that I was off the phone with the MRI techs. No, I did not get through to the doctor, and they’ve yet to call me back, and since it’s now after 5pm on a Friday, I don’t think I’m going to hear back until Monday at the soonest.)
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Angry. Scared. Betrayed.
Every time I advocate for myself, I’m treated like I’m being “dramatic” or “difficult”- even though medical negligence keeps proving my instincts to be right:
- They missed fractures before
- They dismissed CRPS symptoms until I fought for answers
- They ignored Ehlers-Danlos symptoms for 28 years
- They overlooked autism and ADHD for 28 years
- They brushed off current injuries
- They left electrical hardware in my spine and never told me
I’m scared my CRPS is spreading.
I’m scared of my leg.
I’m scared of my own medical records.
But I’m telling this story because I know I’m not alone. Maybe someone reading this will feel a little less gaslit in their own journey. -and maybe a little bit less afraid to stand up and say, “hey something isn’t right” when they know in their bones that there’s something seriously wrong going on inside of their bodies.
✧ Author’s Note
Thank you for being here. Sharing stories this raw takes a lot out of me, but it also reminds me why I created The Crippled Cryptid: to make space for disabled, chronically ill folks to speak their truths without apology.
If you’re navigating medical trauma, CRPS, chronic illness, or disability, you’re not alone. You deserve care that believes you, listens to you, and protects you.
Written with coffee on one side, a heating pad on the other, and Luna snoring at my feet.
-Sky, The Crippled Cryptid
https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa
© The Crippled Cryptid- Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
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