Getting Back to Pain Free Days
I feel like it's been one long string of bad luck experiences. It's as if I've been stuck in Retrograde all damn year.
What gives? I'm starting to notice that years ending in 9 are some of my worst years.
What the hell universe? Seriously.
I was doing great, January I had zero pain. I was feeling awesome.
Then I got BioTe, Bio-Identical Hormones, at the beginning of February and it was all downhill from there.
We're working on our house this weekend and my father-in-law asked me where the paintbrushes were, I know we have them, not a clue as to where. Now, this may sound fine and normal to some people, but I'm the kind of person who can tell you the peanut butter is on the 3rd shelf up, on the right, behind the tuna. Damn, I hate what pain does to my brain.
Back to BioTe...
When my functional medicine doctor was getting my dosage ready for the implantation, he asked me if I get headaches before my period starts. I answered yes, so he said, "Let's put a little estrogen in the mix to help with that."
Ugh.
Huge mistake.
In the next few months, I gained 15 lbs...and I was still working out and eating right, so it was the effing estrogen. Also noting that I felt like I had chronic fatigue syndrome, I was a constant bitch to my husband, my joints became even more hypermobile, and did I mention I gained 15 lbs?
F- that! I'll take the damn headaches, just get this crap out of my body.
Well, I had to wait until they "dissolved" for the estrogen to just go the hell away. Meanwhile, back at the lodge, in April, I hurt my back trying working out harder than I should have to lose the weight I had gained from the estrogen. My chiropractor got my back into place from the misguided workout attempt, but two nights in the ER had it out again.
Why was I in the emergency room you ask?
That same day of my extreme workout, I had routine blood work done for my annual physical and the phlebotomist punctured my artery.
That next week, I flew to Orlando for #breadwinnerbff's 40th birthday. I walked about 8 miles around Universal Studios. That is an amazing feat for someone with Adhesive Arachnoiditis. I got to rest for two days after that but was home alone taking care of myself, like the stubborn idiot I am (introvert wants alone time).
Luke was infested with fleas, so I hurt my back, again, trying to give him a bath with #leohusband that same day. I spent the next week vacuuming and running laundry every day. More trauma to my back.
Going into our third week with Luke, I made ramen for dinner and subsequently spilled the boiling ramen all over my legs when I crawled onto the couch to eat dinner.
I haven't moved that fast in years, especially since I got Adhesive Arachnoiditis. I jumped off the couch, bent over and ripped my ruined yoga pants off my body as fast as I possibly could, and sprinted to my shower to drench myself in cold water.
My legs were on fire and #leohusband is Googling that I need to stay under the cold water for 20 minutes. My back seized up under the cold water and me shivering halfway through the twenty minutes.
I know what you're thinking, geez could it get any worse?
Oh just wait!
So that week we had some really, really horrible thunderstorms come through. Turns out that Luke had severe thunderstorm anxiety. No matter where I was he would try to get as close to me as possible, which meant my lap. My lap is not made for a 76 lb dog. After constant attempts to sit on me, the pain in my back just got out of control.
#leohusband left for another trip and I could not physically take care of Luke on my own, so I ended up calling his foster mom to come get him.
Then I had two weeks of being on my own, trying to keep the fort running, and waiting until #leohusband comes home to finally take care of my back issues.
So by this time my back has been out of alignment for 8 weeks. It has spent so much time out of alignment that it is the norm for it now. My freaking hypermobility is so annoying. Actually, I have some real choice words for how I feel about my hypermobility but I'm trying to keep this blog PG-13.
#leohusband finally got home but the damage was done a long, long, time ago. We traveled to San Antonio for my nephew's graduation which there was no way I could do hours in a stadium seat so we did dinner and quality time, and went home.
Mid-June when my chiropractor would put my back into place and it would shift back out within 20 minutes to 48 hours, I called in for back up.
#leohusbands mom came down to do laundry, help us put together freezer meals, and do some odd jobs around the house that I just haven't gotten to and if I did them, I would just further piss off my already infuriated back.
That's the reality of the situation. All the gains I had with the last two years of yoga have been lost in 3 months. Muscle death with Adhesive Arachnoiditis is real y'all.
So my awesome physical therapist gave me a 28-week plan and I joined Life Time Fitness. Upon my first day it was obvious there's a cult following where some people have had the Kool-aid. Why are you at the gym all day? What are you an athletic model? seriously?
All I care about is getting my stretch on, doing my PT, and then hitting the treadmill or lap pool. Last week was hell. I don't know how I even made it to Friday. I was so tired, and in so much pain, but I've got to keep on it to rebuild the muscle I've lost.
In short, I haven't kept up with my blog, or my Instagram, or just life in general. I am finding it hard to function period. I've probably said this before but when #breadwinnerbff was getting married and her sister missed her flight, her reaction was priceless, "It's not that I don't care, it's that I can't."
Nothing has ever been so pricicely clear than that phrase. That's exactly how I feel, I should care about keeping up my presence online and in social media, but I just can't right now.
I'll be up and motivated to spread my wisdom and help again soon, because I refuse to give in to this disease and that folks, is what this battle is all about. I just need to direct my energy to me for a bit.
