When Life Happens

Life can be sarcastic sometimes.  Like when you wash your car and park it under a a tree...where birds gather...and drop, umm, stuff.  Or when you arrive at an awesome movie early enough to be too late and there are only front row seats left and the guy 6 rows back thinks its funny to throw popcorn at your head and then they have to interrupt the movie to escort that said guy out, which is ultimately a good thing but why you just spend $22 for that experience, you don't even know.

Or when you wake up with a muscle spasm.

Let's take a deeper look at the latter.  Sometimes muscle spasms are a good reminder to take things easy, but they don't make sense when the only thing you did was SLEEP.  However two Thursdays ago, I did wake up with a muscle spasm.  "Whatevs," as my sister would say.  But a few days later, that muscle spasm turned into a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad neck pain.  And I mean VERY BAD.  I talked with my twin sister about it because she went through a nearly identical (no pun intended) experience a couple months back.  When she went to her doctor's about it and found no remedy there, she visited a chiropractor who luckily got her on the road to healing.  One of my favorite quotes says that "smart people learn from their mistakes; wise people learn from others."  Taking that advice, I visited my local chiropractor first in hopes of finding relief.    I laid face down on the bed and had the chiropractor prod my spine looking for my C5 and L3 and tell me I had things like a "presenting octopus" (or something like that).

When my session was finished, I felt absolutely no better.  I wanted to cry, mostly because having 3 children and no housekeeper made this pain feel intolerable.  Well, no, the pain actually was intolerable.  I've given birth without an epidural and because that pain had an obvious purpose, I considered it 'tolerable'.  But this?  No, absolutely not.  It was virtually unbearable, and my poor sweet husband had stayed up with me or woken up to my crying because of how awful it was.  Thankfully he was very patient about it and sat with me, rubbing my shoulder, until I could relax enough to fall asleep.

Because I thought what I had was a muscle spasm, I kept trying to rest my neck, but there was very little indication of it getting better.  Since my husband was going out of town this weekend, I was getting increasingly worried that I was going to have to watch my three kids alone when I could barely roll out of bed myself.  However, my mom readily volunteered to pick the kids up and let them stay over.  That accomplished two things:  I was able to rest a whole lot, icing my neck and shoulder, and secondly, I was able to get to the doctors this morning.  Diagnosis: I have a SPRAINED NECK.  Who has ever heard of such a thing??  Once again I wanted to cry as the doctor said there was no quick fix - I have to wait it out.  But I did receive a bit of good news: I'm allowed to move.  He said being up and about is actually a good thing for healing, which is the best news any injured mom could hear.  Then the doctor asked me which pain medication I preferred, and went on to list several types.  I sat there a bit confused, as I only recognized one of the names (vicodin) and sheepishly told him that I've never taken prescription pain medications before.  I've given birth 3 times and had all 4 wisdom teeth removed - and still have never taken prescription pain meds.  Well, I guess I've taken the prescription strength Motrin at the hospital after giving birth.  So he prescribed what he thought would work best, and now I'm home and resting.

On another note, one thing that really helped in taking my mind off the pain was picking up Francine River's 'Redeeming Love.'

I read this book over a decade ago and knew it to be a good one, but since it had been awhile since I read it, I decided to pick it up again.  It required no deep thinking on my part so thankfully (!!) the story helped get my mind off the pain.  However, I finished it in a day and because I'm desperately trying to declutter my home, I see no reason to leave this sitting on my bookshelf.  So, I'd love to give it away to someone who wants to read it.  Doesn't matter if you've read it before or not, but I would prefer it go to someone who won't be storing it on their bookshelf for several months before getting to it.  If you're interested, feel free to leave a comment (or Facebook message, if you're a FB friend) saying so.  I'll be using the highly technical name-in-a-hat drawing method on April 6th so you have until then to let me know!

(I feel funny writing this post, but this is my life, and this is what's going on.  Also, want to give a real quick thank you to Jenny, for answering my late night calls; Mom, for rushing over at my worst time and getting me to the chiropractor; Megan, for your willingness to sponsor my children (and ultimately letting Cadence come sleepover with his best buddy), Connie, for messaging me and lending her knowledge, and my husband and kids for their help, patience, flowers, and Rubios!  I feel like I'm writing a book or cd cover.  I'm not, but I'm super grateful to these people.  This was a hard week, but I lived!)