What is the worst injury/illness you have had

[Bilberry]

A form of colitis which first reared its head about the age or 15. Devastating, unpleasant disease.

 

[piglet1979]

Illness would be having shingles when I was 29. I had a 1 year old and a 2 year old and just started a new job.

Injury would be having the muscle separate from my pelvic bone after an accident last April. I couldn't sit without being in horrible pain for a week or more. My daughters first communion was 2 days after it happened and I had to stand through it and try not to cry from being in so much pain.

 

[winterman]

When I was 16, I was hospitalized for a week with a fever of unknown origin. It was eventually diagnosed as a kidney infection.

In my mid 50's I had a sinus infection that was incredibly painful.

 

[aprilchem]

I have severe PCOS and that's not been fun (the symptoms are terrible), although not generally painful.

Worst illness I can remember in recent history was when I got bronchitis which turned into pneumonia. At the same time I had a sinus infection and had cracked two ribs from coughing, so I was in terrible pain and really unable to get up and around. And of course, DH was traveling and I was alone with an infant, a 2 year old, and a 3 year old. That was rough!

 

[rajak73]

I feel lucky, worst injury is couple of broken or cracked ribs last year after falling off of ladder. Doctor asked when it hurt and I told him only when I breath, move, laugh, and cough otherwise I was good!

 

[Squirlz]

The one and only serious injury I've ever had was my left calf getting ripped open by a piece of 3" x 3" angle iron, serving as a trailer tail light bracket. I was out in the middle of nowhere and had to be rushed to the hospital, 45 minutes away, in the back of a pickup truck while keeping pressure on the wound. It missed a major artery by 2mm. Left a nifty scar.

This is when I was working at a microbrewerey, and the worst part was I was scheduled to fly to Denver the next day to represent at the Geat American Beer Festival. At least they brought me a hat.

Up until then I had lived my life without a single stitch or broken bone. Still have my appendix and tonsils.

 

[nikkistevej]

Appendix ruptured when I was 6(way back in 1979), I had been in pain for weeks, my mom kept taking me to the doctor(they kept on saying it was my ovaries- and they needed to remove them), mom didn't let them, we were going to get a second opinion, then it burst, so I was in the hospital for 18 days, because when it ruptures(at least back then), you can die. But many years later, I'm still around.

 

[MrsDuck]

I've been incredibly lucky...
Illness: terrible kidney infection that I had in college - took DRs forever to figure it out. I'd get up in the mornings and then pass out! It was awful.
Injury: multiple broken bones.

 

[Vernie822]

A staph infection in my knee. I think I got it from mats at the cheer gym. Spread from my knee all the way up to my thigh and I was in the hospital for 4 days.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

By far, a broken ankle.

First of all, the pain when you foot is up then you have to put it down to go to the bathroom or wherever and all of the blood rushes down - I still get sick thinking about it and it has been almost 11 years!

Also what made it bad was the absolute horror of a time trying to get around or getting anything done on crutches or hopping around on one leg. DD was 9 months (I actually broke it while I was carying her down a flight of stairs - saved the baby, sacrificed the ankle - sigh) and older DS was 4 1/2. I had no help past the first weekend and still had to take care of them and go to work everyday, so there was no resting with it up in bed for me! We brought DD's stroller in the house and I hopped around using it for support LOL. And propped one knee up on a chair while I washed dishes and made lunch/dinner. DH was working 60 hours a week at that time and was hardly ever home.

Sigh...those were the days LOL

2nd worst - I had strep throat about 5 years ago and it resisted the first round of general antibiotics so I went for a second round of Bactrim to knock it out.

The pharmacist said to be careful about the sun. I thought she meant that I would be more susceptable to sunburn, so a few days later when DH had the bright idea to take the kids to the beach, I made sure I slathered the sunscreen on!

Apparently, the Pharmacist really meant: DO NOT GO INTO THE SUNLIGHT AT ALL! I got the most horrible, red, itchy rash anywhere that the sun had touched. It lasted for weeks,and I was so itchy that I cried. I couldn't sleep, couldn't distract myself, nothing worked! Benedryl didn't touoch it. Then one day I finally ran out of the Benedryl and out of sheer desperation I took a Claritin (because I obviously didn't learn my lesson the first time about being careful with drugs and doing what the Pharmacist tells me!LOL) but it WORKED and the rash and itchiness was markedly better within a few hours and by the next day or two I was well into being recovered. Thank goodness!!!

ETA: Reading the rest of these made me remember - how could I forget!!! - this past August when I sliced the tip of my finger off in a mandolin.

I thought I was going to pass out every time I thought of the moment I felt it slice through. Then I just about *did* pass out the next morning when I was finally brave enough to take the bandage off and it stuck to the completely open wound. I was dizzy and seeing stars. I barely made it to the bed to lie down and stop gagging and hyperventilating. That darn thing took nearly 6 weeks to grow skin back over it! And you can still see where it was sliced and it is still fairly numb. The tip of my finger is almost completely flat by the nail. Probably always will be. Boy did I learn a lesson from that one!

 

[pryncess527]

A broken arm in 7th grade.

And stitches in my chin or forehead a handful of times when I was a kid

 

[cijay]

Fell out of a chair and smashed my head on a concrete (or is it cement? I can never remember which way it goes) floor when I was 2. Very high fever about 10 years later damaged my eyes, ears and balance. Because of that, I fell and smashed my head on another concrete floor about 20 years ago this taking care of another good chunk of my hearing. NONE of that can compare to the pain of bunion surgery though. lOL

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Just a few cuts and bruises

Broke left wrist age 4 Fell off a porch when a big gust of wind hit.
Tonsils out age 5
Pneumonia ages 6, 7, 12
Sliced right hand open, while doing dishes and broke a cup in the water. Cut between my pointer finger and thumb all the way down to the meat, needed surgery to repair nerves/muscles age 14
Damaged ligaments in both knees age 19
Sliced open under chin (6 stitches) age 19
Chicken pox age 24
Car accident: broke bones in both hands and sprained both wrists age 34
Childbirth age 18, 22, 32 *yes this counts
Concussions: Age 9 (playing on a tall dresser outside, it fell over, cracked my head on the sidewalk); twice at age 24 (within a month of each other, while being...um, busy)
Broken nose (thanks to DD#2) age 26

Psoriatic arthritis in both wrists, knees, ankles and also the toes on right foot. The psoriasis seems to be limited (now) to just my feet/ankles/knees/hands. At one point it was over 70% of my body (age 35).


Let's not even go with burns/cuts from work. I have scars from cleaning grills, using boxcutters, steam burns, oven burns, etc.

 

[Andtototoo]

A bout of gastrointestinal virus when I was a teenager. It left me so weak, I literally could not walk more than 2 feet without collapsing. And I did collapse several times. My father had to carry me to and from the bathroom. It was nearly 10 days before I could stand for more than 10 minutes. I was completely dehydrated and I lost over 10 pounds -- when I was already super skinny. In retrospect, I really should have been in the hospital getting a saline drip at the very least, but heaven forbid my parents pay for a trip to the doctor. (They also complained incessantly that I was missing work at my $2/hour job and insisted I return to work before I was ready. I ended up being sent home because I was too weak to stand for my shift. Got yelled at about that too.)

 

[havaneselover]

Lyme disease summer going into 9th grade (1990). It was just becoming common in CT and my 90 year old pediatrician (maybe he wasn't that old, but he was really old) missed that I had every symptom including the rash. I spent the summer completely miserable.

 

[Gracie09]

Appendix ruptured when I was 6(way back in 1979), I had been in pain for weeks, my mom kept taking me to the doctor(they kept on saying it was my ovaries- and they needed to remove them), mom didn't let them, we were going to get a second opinion, then it burst, so I was in the hospital for 18 days, because when it ruptures(at least back then), you can die. But many years later, I'm still around.

I had the opposite- thought it was my appendix it and turned out that a large cyst on my ovary burst. They removed the appendix and tried (but failed) to salvage the ovary

 

[bcla]

I feel rather fortunate. I had a hairline fracture in my wrist after a bike against car collision. I went to the campus hospital because it seemed like a wrist sprain that wasn't getting better, and they had it X-rayed. Initially the doctor examining the X-ray said it looked OK and was probably just a severe sprain that hadn't healed in a month. Then I got a call and found that they have another radiologist review all X-rays and saw there was a really thin crack that was hard to spot.

Other than that I had a clean dislocation of a finger once. Really nasty looking - other people were staring at it saying that they thought it was broken. I drove myself to the emergency room, and I drive a stick. When the first doctor came in the first thing he asked when he saw my finger was "So what sport was this?"

 

[dizluvah]

2003 Myocardial Infarction (aka heart attack) and 2 cardiac stents placed
2007 Hysteroscopic Myomectomy (removal of uterine cyst)
2010 C-section

Injury - broken toe

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Broke my arm and had to have it reset...twice.

I got bit by a dog in my chin when I was little. I had a few stich from both the teeth and where my teeth went through my lip because of it. I rememet them cleaning and numbing the cuts... ugh.

I was just diagnosed with TMD and this is pretty sucky. Just the fact that it's taking forever to go away is the worst part and make it noteworthy.

 

[LilyWDW]

Injury: Fell off the high bar in middle school and shattered my left wrist. It will still lock up on me every so often if I move it too fast.
Illness: Hmmm, this one is tough. I mean, the winner is easily my Interstitial Cystitis as it is a chronic pain condition. It is often considered one of the most painful medical conditions. If we were just talking about 1 off illnesses then it is a tie between real food poisoning (as in tested and confirmed and linked back to under cooked chicken from a restaurant) and a kidney infection. Both were terrible for different reasons.