Back in 2015, 34-year-old mother Genevieve Lopez went on a hiking trip with some of her friends down in Los Angeles, California. On the trip, her foot slipped and she ended up sliding down an eight-foot cliff drop.
“All I remember is waking up in a pile of blood,” Lopez recalled.
Thankfully, with the help of her friends, Lopez managed to return home. But later that day, she began to experience strange tingling sensations in her leg and intense pain in her spine. “At the beginning I started having tingling feelings in my legs and I felt panicky all of the time,” she remembered. She was also unable to move her fingers normally and putting pressure on her back was an agonizing experience.
She went to see the doctors, to see if her injuries were symptoms of something more severe, but they brushed her off.
Because she didn’t show any signs of outward injury, they assumed the pain was simply a symptom of mental disorder, anxiety that had kicked in after the fall because she was traumatized. For quite some time, Lopez believed them and returned home without asking further questions.
Then, the pain got worse. “Sometimes I couldn’t move one side of my body. I knew I needed some kind of scan to reveal what was wrong with me,” she said. “I still don't know if I'm going to fully recover and I feel like I have half healed, the nerve pains in my arms are sometimes intolerable.”
After a month of suffering with the pain, Lopez returned to the hospital when the symptoms persisted and got worse. Doctors kept her in the hospital for ten days, explaining they would perform a brain scan to diagnose what was wrong.
They were still convinced that Lopez’s pain was a result of her anxiety, and not actual injury.
But the MRI revealed an excessive amount of spinal fluid flooding into her brain. The cliff fall had more than just caused her anxiety.
The impact of the fall had damaged an area of her vertebrae and had caused a large cyst to form. The cyst was continuing to expand, which was subsequently putting pressure on her spine and causing her incessant pain.
At this point, because the injury had happened so long ago, the cyst had grown to be too large to drain with a simple procedure.
The only way to treat Lopez was to remove the section of her affected vertebrae and replace it with metal plates and screws. Doctors feared, however, the cyst had already caused permanent nerve damage.
Lopez explained, “I had never heard of this kind of cyst before but it made so much sense, due to the amount of pain I was getting from my back.”
Since the surgery, doctors have diagnosed Lopez (properly) with fibromyalgia, a condition that causes her to become tired more easily and sensitive to pain.
Though Lopez’s health has since stabilized, she’s still forced to use a heating pad for about four hours each day to keep her body functioning through the pain.
“I know that my life will never be the same, but I’m thankful for the overwhelming love and support that I have received,” she said now. Her parents, children, and friends have all been incredible sources of support through her period of recovery.
We’re wishing her all the best in her health.
