I don’t want this to become my sounding board for every ache and pain, but the situation with my back is still the central theme in our household.
Welcome to week two in the “Mama is a Gimp” saga.
To be honest, my back pain is starting to scare me. The last time — which was the first time — my back hurt was last August. I know it was caused from being foolish enough to carry both babies in their heavy as hell infant carriers in and out of Miss Jennifer’s, the store, the house, etc. My recovery took three days and I was back to normal.
That’s not the case this time. We are on week 2. I don’t know what caused it. There has been little to no improvement. And lately it has gone from feeling like a muscular issue (dull pain) to perhaps something more with the nerves (sharp pain).
My muscle relaxers have lost their effectiveness, and my pain pills are long gone.
I hurt. The chronic pain is now effecting my mood. I snapped at Mark this evening with no just cause. He has been great over the past 2 weeks — tending to all of the twins’ needs, and letting me rest my back as much as possible.
The way the doc explained it to me last week is that my back is a large collection of muscles. It will be easy to continue to strain it because it’s impossible to truly rest it. In my case it’s especially bad because I can rest my back when the twins are at Miss Jennifer’s and at the end of the day my back does feel a lot better. Then the next day I have the twins home with me and it’s pure hell on my back.
So it’s one step forward, two steps back.
On top of that, I have this feeling of isolation. My mom lives 250 miles away. Mark obviously can’t be at home with me all the time. I don’t have anyone here I can call on to help me. My close friends that I’ve had forever and whom I could count on for anything all live up in Dallas (about as far away as my mom is from me). My local family are all busy with their own lives or working. And, frankly, Miss Jennifer has left all the hints that she isn’t interested in watching them every day this week (and that could be another post).
So I’m toughing it out. I am brought to tears just simply picking them up to put them in their highchairs or up on the changing table or hell just picking them up for any reason.
Kate does a great job entertaining herself for most of the day. She plays with her toys, looks out the window, and does some exploring. She will let me know when she is hungry or just needs a quick kiss and snuggle.
Carson is another story. He isn’t that good at self-entertaining…well, at least not for long periods of time. He is constantly on my coat-tails. He follows me to the bathroom, to the kitchen, he is my little shadow. Which is cute when I am not hurting, but (and I hate to say this) he is a big chunk of my two steps backwards issue.
Now that he is teething — which, by the way, his first tooth is all the way through and he is now working on tooth #2 — he has become super clingy. If I lay on the sofa to rest my back, he is standing right there banging his hands on my stomach and fussing until I pick him up. If I lay on my stomach on the floor (the most comfortable position for me), he is almost immediately climbing on my back and either pulling my hair or trying to yank off my glasses. Carson is your typical wild, playful toddler — which is super cute when I’m not in pain.
To round-out this whiney post, let me also add that my house has stairs (26 to be exact) and that is the most painful task.
Oh, and the other casualty of my gimpiness is the house. Can you imagine what your house would look like if you had two toddlers and couldn’t bend over to pick things up off the floor for two weeks? Yeah. It’s that bad.
Tomorrow I am calling to set up an appointment for physical therapy. I hope that helps because I really can’t continue on this way.
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