Back from Oblivion

In the immortal words of Minnie Pearl


I’m more or less back. Thanks to lots of wonderful prayers and well-wishes it’s more more than less. OK – so that didn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe the drugs still haven’t completely worn off?? Muddling on...

For those of you who emailed me wanting to know what the heck I did to myself, I have one thing to say: I HAVE NO FREAKIN’ IDEA! It started Thursday with something that felt like a cramp on the outside of my right calf. By Friday, it had expanded to my thigh and felt more like a charliehorse. Saturday the charliehorse got worse after I mistakenly tried to work it out by doing yard work. On Sunday morning I couldn’t move my leg more than a few inches and my foot started tingling so I decided it was time to visit the nice people at the emergency care place up the road. They are very lovely people who gave me wonderful drugs so that even though the pain wasn’t all gone, I diiiiduuunt caaaaayeeeerrr.

Several of you suggested taking the time to read a good book. I would have loved that! However, after a thorough and lengthy inspection of the inside of my eyelids I determined that there are no holes in them that would allow for such taxing activity. And since the nice drugs made it impossible for me to keep my eyes open, no reading. I birthed two babies – an 8-1/2 pounder and a 7-1/2 pounder. And I did it the hard way with no pain meds. None. (Well ½ a shot of Demerol with the second one, but that’s another story – tee hee hee!) And I was induced both times which, I’m told, produces a harder labor than normal (whatever “normal” might be). But I am here to tell you that pushing those two watermelons out of my body was NOTHING compared to the pain associated with that pinched nerve thing. There was no way I was going to give up my pain meds for a little literary indulgence.

There was one really bad side effect to all the muscle relaxants and pain killers. Ummm, apparently several weeks of 16-hour, 130 mile round trip days isn’t the only thing that can cause a Colorado River sized log-jam of constipation. I discovered that the combination of drugs I was taking works even faster. Usually when I have a problem it’s related to tension and if I just sit there and relax a little, things start moving. So I sat. Waiting. And waiting. As I relaxed I closed my eyes and tried to visualize a calm, peaceful river running through my body carrying all the timber downstream toward a waterfall. Suddenly, I was startled from my exercise in guided imagery by my dog pawing at my lap. Yep, you guessed it: I fell.asleep.on the toilet! How doped up does somebody have to be to fall asleep on the john?? You can now understand why I’m glad to be back and almost drug free. I’m going to continue to take the Flexeril and the Motrin and save the Vicodin for the next time I need to take a nap. On the pooper.

Again, thank you for all your prayers. It’s wonderful to feel so loved!

Coming tomorrow: An update on my Girl. I promise.