It is so strange to sit here and have completely run out of things to do. While watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy (bye tough girl Christina Yang) it occurred to me I have a blog that hasn't had any attention in quite some time. But now that life has forced me to a complete halt, here I am.
Its my 30th year of life and what better year to have back surgery? I write with a hint of sarcasm of course. I mean, who wouldn't want to be reliant on vicodin for pain, use a grabnabber to reach anything above or below current reaching capabilities, be tuckered out from a walk around the block and rely on others to cook meals and run errands?
I've had a sore back my whole life. I fell off a bunk bed when I was eight and I just chalked all the soreness throughout my life up to normalcy because I'd never known it any other way. Apparently its not normal to have sore feet after an hour at the mall. Who knew?
In January of 2013 I was working out at the gym in a group training class. I've never done cross fit but I can equate the classes to something similar. I had spent 7 months working out, gaining muscle and feeling and looking my best. I was so cool, feeling like supermom with tons of energy, lifting 50 pound bags of dog food like a boss, working out sometimes six days a week. One day, we were doing a finisher which consisted of burpees, which I happen to love dearly, and I felt a stabbing pain in my knee and my leg that caused me to not be capable of finishing the workout. After that day, I could no longer bend my left knee without pain.
The knee pain subsided as I worked carefully to avoid the movements that caused me pain. But this meant no running, no squatting, no burpees, no lunges and pretty much everything having to do with the knee. Little by little, the pain seemed to manifest itself more in my hip and less in my knee. At this point I stopped exercising completely, which caused a not so welcome 10 pound weight gain. To be honest, I sank into a pretty big pity party and ate my heart out. But at least I didn't eat a whole Marie Callendars pie alone. Although I could have. But I digress.
My most wonderful chiropractor, whom I endearingly call Dr. Deb, finally suggested ordering an xray since there was no improvement after several months. The xray of my back turned out mostly normal with a slight compression in the lumbar region and knee turned out 100% normal (at least something about me is normal). So thanks to my bomb diggity insurance and my handy dandy medical flex plan I got my MRI done and went to see the Orthopedic surgeon.
Dr. Moelleken is the best. He has experience in both spine and nuero so I knew going in I already had the best. The MRI showed a large herniated disc compressing my spinal chord, thus causing nerve pain. He recommended an epidural shot which, $1500 later, did nothing but cause a huge flare, something they couldn't foresee. Apparently this flare happens rarely. Lucky me! After the epidural I was on twice the amount of pain killers than before.
At this point I was working 6 and sometimes 7 days a week during tax season. I ended up taking a day off work after my epidural which is just not something you do so close to April 15th. My pain killers had to be planned around my commute since they made me dizzy. Sometimes I had to leave my desk, go to the back of the office or into the bathroom and cry because the pain was so unbearable. Then I would breathe slowly, wipe my tears and finish the day. Lets just say that I feel I earned every penny of my tax season bonus this year working a lot of overtime with my body in constant suffering.
The next time I saw the doctor I was so ready to move forward that I think my eagerness puzzled him. My quality of life sucked. I had no life outside work, my kids heard "mom just needs to lay down" a lot and my relationship with Tyler was strained. Everything in my life was suffering. So I talked to Dr. Moelleken about my options and the fact was I could live in pain or have surgery. Surgery it is! That same day I had my blood work done, the next week I was cleared for surgery, and the following week I had surgery. It all happened very fast.
Surgery went well and the doc said my herniated disc was actually larger than what was shown on the MRI. Ouch.
So here I am, about a week and a half out from having surgery, feeling much better than before. I have pain from my incision and my back is sore, not to mention the part of my leg that has gone numb but I have relief from the pinched nerve! That nerve pain is not something I could ever describe to you. Its just the very, very worst. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, and there are people I wish I was mean enough to wish this on!
The moral of this very long and maybe super boring story is to not fall off a bunk bed, herniate a disc, make it worse with exercise, gain weight, try an epidural and have back surgery before the age of 30. If you can mange that, I would say you're right on track!
