Well shoot
It is 2 AM as I begin typing this. I woke up 15 minutes ago and the main purpose of this post is try and make me tired enough to go back to sleep. BUT, while I have your attention, I might as well lay out what I have going on currently.
I have spent the last week in various degrees of miserable back pain. Since I am not the type to seek medical treatment for a malady, I waited until Tuesday morning, when it became clear that this was not something that would just go away on its own, to get an appointment with a specialist. Said appointment was yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, and it was then determined I have a herniated disk. This is not an uncommon condition, but apparently my mobility is more limited than it should be (plus I literally can't stand up straight) so I'm going in 6 hours to have my first MRI to determine the severity of the injury.
Things that suck about this:
1. It hurts. Plain and simple, some of the worst pain I've ever been in.
2. It costs money. I have to pay for the MRI out of pocket tomorrow; thus, until my tax return comes through (read: until I do my taxes), my savings will be slightly dwindled.
3. Everyone has an opinion. If you didn't know this about me, I hate whining, and will rarely discuss if I'm not feeling well. I tend to be of the opinion that, say, if I have a cold, my telling you that my throat is sore and how much I'm coughing doesn't do anything for anyone except fill the space between pauses in conversation. So, naturally, I would have kept this whole thing much quieter if it didn't make me walk like a senior citizen. So, over the last week, I have had pretty much anyone I come in contact with ask me what's wrong. I tell them I did something to my back (I also wish I could pinpoint a specific moment when I got injured, because it seems to baffle the greatest amateur health experts how this could happen), and they proceed to tell me one of the following remedies:
a. Put heat on it
b. Put cold on it
c. Go see a doctor
d. Go see a chiropractor
e. Take Tylenol
f. Take Advil
g. Do Pilates
h. Let me walk on it (you'd be surprised how many people think this is the cure-all for back problems)
i. Get acupuncture
The biggest debate was definitely between doctor and chiropractor. I have been blessed over the last week to hear no less than a dozen individuals' experiences with chiropractors, both good and bad. And so many stories of people's own pain; not stories to empathize, more "I had a herniated disk on the moon" stories of the terrible pain everyone else has been through that sounds similar to, yet so much worse than, my own. So much fun...
4. This could not have come at a worse time. I have enough work on my desk to get me through the end of May pretty comfortably, and it all needs to be done by the end of April, if not sooner. And I have my cousin's wedding in MN at the end of March that I am hoping to drive up for, but I'm not sure how my doctor would feel about that, not to mention Matt and Janelle's wedding in NC a week and a half later.
Ugh.
All right, I'm still not tired, I'm going to try some other methods. I'll post my MRI results later today :-) (That's right, you've just been emoticon-ed)
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