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It’s so not. I hate it in fact. My back pain. Tonight I crawled into bed, lay down and attempted to relax my back muscles. They wouldn’t because the pain was intense. I’m talking a 7 here. Lucky it only lasted a few minutes more than normal.

Normal for me is crawl into bed, relax the back, it hurts to about a 4 for a minute and then I’m good. Not today.

So what was different? The big difference was I worked from home and the first half of the day was in my shitty office chair. I realized today why it is so uncomfortable for me. It’s padded but the seat pan, the part you sit on, is deep and I cannot sit with my back all the way to the back of the chair. So it is in a constant state of slouch. No wonder my back hurts worse than normal!! Kris let me use his chair for the afternoon but the damage for the day had been done.

When my back gets that bad I don’t always realize it until laying down or it seizes during a bend. This is because it has become so tight it is like a board. But there is no pain. And unless I do a few repeated bends, like putting down dog bowls one too many times, or picking something up from the floor, I’m good. Then when it’s asked to move in a way that goes against the stiff as a board, it can seize up which is no fun.

Let me explain. If you have ever had a cramp in your foot or your calf, that point in the cramp when it’s the worst, which for me is towards the beginning, is what my back feels like. I can’t stand back up. I have to go to the floor. From there I can get the muscles to relax a bit that lets me stand back up. But it takes several minutes. Just like a foot or calf cramp. Only it feels worse than those because the muscles in the back are larger, longer and stronger.

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. I did take ibuprofen and put some of the pain relieving cream on. I should probably take a muscle relaxer but that means getting out of bed and then going through this again. FML.

Bedtime Thoughts

So I’m in bed and just wanting to go to sleep and my brain has this thought, “according to all the doctors, neurologists, chiropractors and everyone else, I will NEVER be able to roll from flat on my back to my side without pain”. Some days that pain is a two and others it’s more like a 5 or 6, sometimes higher.

Imagine laying in bed. Warm under the covers. Dreading rolling to the side to adjust the soreness creeping into your butt from laying on it for more than two hours. That is my nightly ritual. To adjust involves pain, how fantastic is that?

Almost as great, I’m sure as trying to post from a friggin’ iPhone keypad! Nightly ramblings from me! Night all, hope your sleep is restful and pain free!

Ramblings…

There is a blog called Hyperbole and a Half. Her most recent blog post was titled Adventures in Depression. I can relate to that post. I have had many episodes over the years where I have found it physically difficult to *do* anything.  Today I am feeling down. Is it depression? I don’t think it’s full blown but it’s definitely a “feeling severely down” feeling.

I am sitting in my living room with music blaring on the radio and it’s upbeat and fun.  I find myself wanting to just let loose and dance. I like to dance. But when I get up and begin dancing and moving to the music, I get stabs of pain in my back.  Plus I told myself I was taking today off from anything more strenuous than my bike rides to and from work.  My back was pretty sore and troublesome on Saturday night and Sunday we took a 1.5 mile walk that was ok but I was sore at the end. I just need to be good tonight and not stress it too much.

And I hate it. Hate it with a vengeance.  My back has been the worst this past year than it has ever been.  Ever.  Two weeks lost this year to my back pain.  Two weeks of not doing much of anything.  That is not me, not who I am.  And now I must conform to this debilitating condition that I have to live with.

Kris has quit the dive shop. He and Scot decided it was too stressful and now he’s looking for a job. He has been the most upbeat and happy these last two weeks than he has been in a while and for that I am very thankful. I just hope he can find a job before too long.  I am not paying all of our combined bills but I am paying what I can.  We have a roof over our heads, thankfully a vehicle that is in pretty good shape and 3 mostly healthy, though aging dogs.  Dog help me if one of them gets sick and needs a surgery of some kind. My credit is about at it’s max and we would not be able to afford it.  Having to make that kind of decision would crush me.

So if you read this, send “find a job Kris” vibes our way.  Thanks.

Back Pain

is an exhausting condition to live with. Not only do the drugs I take to try and make the pain less, make me really sleepy and fuzzy, but just the constant mind over matter about the pain is exhausting. And boring too.

Last Sunday I vacuumed the house. On Monday Kris and I started Couch to 5K and ran for a whole whopping 8 minutes. Then later, we picked up Fern, walked around the Japanese Gardens in Portland, went to the Cavalia show and spent a few hours in the car driving to and fro.  On Tuesday we went to the coast and walked on the beach and of course spent a few hours in the car driving there and back again. We swung by a really cool light show out in Newton, www.newtonlights.com I believe.

Wednesday morning I woke up with bad pain. I could hardly get my slippers on since I have to pull them on over my heel.  I did some gentle stretches but had a hard time getting down on the floor and back up again. I did take a shower, I was so determined to not let the pain stop me from going to work, but as I held onto the shower wall to try and step out of the tub, and then paused to catch my breath after holding it in through the pain, I decided I was being foolish and needed to rest.  I spent the day drugged and in bed.  Like clockwork, the pain meds would wear off and I’d get up, get a drink, take more meds and go back to sleep.

Thursday I managed to make it into to work.  I had to move slow and pause after standing from a sit, in order to let the muscle spasms subside.  It was not fun.  I was starting to feel a little better that night so Kris and I went to the Kaizer light show in a small neighborhood. Apparently that was a bad idea.  On Friday I made it to work but only lasted an hour before I realized there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate.  As soon as I turned off my Tens unit, the pain would come back full force and I had already taken a Tramadol which is the only drug I had that didn’t make me completely fuzzy.  So I called Kris and went home to spend another day in bed on drugs.  Saturday morning I got up and told Kris I needed to go see a doctor because the meds I had were not cutting down the pain and it wasn’t getting better.  So he took me to Urgent Care where I got two shots, one for pain and one as a muscle relaxant.  He also prescribed me an NSAID to help with the inflammation.  I did begin to feel better on Saturday afternoon and wasn’t spending as much time in bed but I still could not sit for any length of time without significant pain.

Sunday saw more improvement and we went to our friend’s house for Christmas dinner.  After a few hours of sitting all I wanted to do was go home and lie down.  That’s the only position that is comfortable and without significant pain.

I hate that I can’t be as active as I want to be.  I hate that I have pain and it’s both mentally and physically exhausting.  Not to mention very demotivating.  I always have to weigh the pain level versus the activity to decide if it’s worth that little bit of extra pain.  Which tends to lead to me sitting on the couch surfing Netflix trying to find something to watch. And if I’m laying flat on my back, even on the couch, it’s hard to view the computer screen to watch.  I know, I know, what a travesty right?  Well I don’t have many options and I hate it!

I WANT to be healthy. I WANT to go on hikes up mountain sides and I WANT to be a runner.  But I can’t.  At least not without facing the consequences afterwards.  I really wish there was something that could keep my back from spasming and seizing up on me.  As I sit here typing this, I have a strong throbbing pain in my left lower back. And according to all the doctors I’ve seen, there is no cure, there is no surgery that can help. I am doomed to live with pain FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. I’m only 36.  I’ve already lived with this for 12 years… and I have what, another 50 to go?  Fuck.

Life Events

They say that the three most stressful things in life are moving, having a loved one dying and financial troubles. Well we’ve got two of those.  Luckily not a loved one dying. 😉  We should be closing on our house back in Indiana soon, hopefully next week.  All the paperwork and financing for the buyer is done, just waiting on a date from the realtors. It’s rather nerve wracking and I just want to get it over with already.  Once that’s done we’ll have extra money and I’ll be able to take over payments on the RV park and the RV itself, which means Kris will be able to keep what little cash he has left to pay for gas and such.

I’ve been looking at apartments and houses for rent the last few days because we’re both tired of the cramped space in the RV.  I had forgotten how difficult it is to find rentals that will accept 3 dogs.  Many, many places around here are one dog under 30 pounds or no dogs. ugh.  I found a place today, it’s a duplex on the East side of Salem that sounds just about right for us. Nice private backyard with no one behind the house, the house doesn’t share a wall with the neighbor, the garage and laundry room do. It’s only a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom but with the garage and laundry room, I think it would do for a while.  The only problem is that the ad says one dog and it’s a little more than we want to spend comfortably for a place but I’m not sure we’ll find something at the price we want to pay. We’ll just have to try and sell the RV as quickly as we can. I will miss this park. Well some aspects of it. 😉 But right now I can smell sewer… it happens every now and then and not surprising really but it’s not all the time, which is good.  But they do events and have lots of benefits to living here.  We just wish we had more space!

The sunsets can be amazing.

 

They do a good job with the grounds and this tent can be reserved free of charge to use. It has a large grill and large island on the other side that is available to be used as well.  Complete with tables and chairs!

And features like two off-leash areas for the dogs make potty time a breeze. Right now the pen below is right across from our final spot in the park, so it’s easy to walk across and let the dogs do their thing.

And the spot we’re in now has a nice grass area behind it where we can relax and tie out the dogs while we read, have dinner or just chill.  So it’s a nice place and the price is right, but we miss our stuff which is in storage and we both wish we had slightly more space. Though I do have to say that completing the vacuuming in 20 minutes is pretty darn nice.  heh….

I follow up with the neurosurgeon next week.  I sure hope that they think surgery is a good option for me. I want to try something else besides all the other things I have tried over the past 12 years!  My back is quite a bit better than the week that landed me in the hospital but it’s still not great.  For example, tonight I trimmed Kota’s fur and then brushed all 3 dogs and that left me in pain from just bending and trust me, I engage my stomach muscles to help!  I would like to be able to do normal every day things without ending up in pain.

I went to agility class for the first time in 4 weeks. Two weeks off for my back and one was Memorial Day.  I did ok in class but I could definitely tell the next day. Plus my calves were sore! How sad! I ran maybe a total of 3 minutes on Monday and was left with sore calf muscles and I was up to 3 miles before my back went out!  ugh…. and the jeans are a little tighter… guess eating all that cookie dough wasn’t such a good idea. lol…

So I’m kind of hoping that we can move into a house/duplex/etc in July sometime. I’m not in a super hurry and I’m not going to select a less than ideal place, but we may not have a whole lot of choices.  But for now we have a place to sleep, we have food in the cupboards and we have each other.