It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. By the way, Happy New Years everyone.
Post Christmas, I took off the 28th of December through January 1st. Woohoo! 5 days off. On Day #2 I bent down to pick up a very heavy grocery bag and twisted to put it in the cart and herniated a disk in my back.
I freaked out, because I’ve had this happen before and know what it entails. I managed to get to the car and assess whether or not I could drive home. I made it home went inside and laid down on the floor. 5 days I spent horizontal. I probably would have went to a doctor on Monday, but I figured with the holiday the next day, just getting some well needed rest would do the job.
January 2nd and 3rd I worked from home. I was feeling pretty good on the 3rd, and decided heading back to work the next day would be just fine. My drive to work was pretty sore, and when I finally made it there I was back to hobbling. But I made it through the day, and Saturday the 5th I was feeling really good. I did some cleaning up of my home office with Craig’s help, things were good! Sunday still doing good, I went back to work on Monday and Tuesday again doing just fine.
Although I had started to forget that I had had a back problem and that Wednesday I woke up in a lot of pain. Craig had left before me that morning, and I managed to get my shower, but the tough part came, socks… I tried to put my socks on and it really hurt. But I kept pushing thinking, this must be early morning stiffness. I made it down to the car and realized there was no way I could do the twisty, bumpy back roads I normally take. So I took the highway in to work, with the pain getting worse and worse. I kept thinking, “how the heck is this happening I was feeling so good”. At one point in my drive I started to cry out of pain and frustration. I made it to work and sat down and tried to do my job.
As the day went on it got worse, my coworkers had commented on how I seemed to be leaning and bent. I got an emergency appointment with the doctor my husband was seeing for his back. When I showed up, I was starting to slightly feel better, but still a hobbling slow person. He assessed my situation and tried to do some electrical stimulation of the muscles and massage to get it all to calm down. Bad part was I walked out in more pain than I was in before and still had to drive 45 minutes home.
I did what I was taught to do, suck it up, take it easy and go back to work the next day and Friday. By Friday afternoon I couldn’t wait to go home and lay down. This past weekend I stayed in bed the entire time with Sunday being one of the worst days. The thought of taking as many ANSAIDs as I could swallow and keep taking until I got relief seriously crossed my mind. By Sunday evening I knew I could not do this anymore, I needed to see an orthopedist and seriously consider injections. The fact that my hips were completely jutted out to the right and I was listing to the left was insane. Your body is not supposed to do that.
Monday morning I called and it turns out all the good orthopedists were in surgery on Mondays… Great! So I finally got an appointment for Tuesday morning. Craig kindly enough stayed home from work both days to help me with anything I needed to do, and driving me around. The doctor I got set up with was great, she walked me through a series of tests to see where my status was, took x-rays, which I might add I got complemented on my very solid good bone structure. Yay, at least one positive. The x-rays came back fine, so she ordered an MRI of my lumbar area. She also prescribed prednisolone.
I took the prednisolone last night and wow! that stuff is awesome! By the time I finished the “day 1” dosage it was like I never had a back problem. That’s some good stuff! I’ve also got a pain killer which seems to be helping a bit. I had the MRI done today and again got an excellent technician who worked with me and my claustrophobia.
Lessons Learned:
1. Don’t wait, and be afraid due to past experiences with doctors.
2. Get the weight off! I didn’t have problems with my back until I peaked at a certain weight. I’m remaining really positive about this year, and it being a very transformative year for me. I’m not turning 30 next year without conquering some of my goals and dreams.
3. Don’t get stressed out as much. Say No. Put myself, my family and my health first.
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