OK, so maybe it isn’t really broken, but it sure
feels like it. I have been having issues with my sciatic nerve. So
about a week and a half ago the back of my thigh was starting to get
achy. Oh here we go I thought. When I was pregnant
with the girls I had some sciatic pain…nothing too bad, I could usually
change positions and get relief…just more of an annoyance than
anything. So I was prepared for what was headed my way. Or so I
thought…oh no my friends…I had no idea what was about to
happen. So for a day or two this annoying ass ache persists. Then a
week ago Saturday I woke up to a whole new level of pain. It was
something I would not wish on my worst enemy. Pain from the middle of
my butt check down about 18 inches. Not a huge space
physically but the ramifications of said ass pain reverberated through
my whole body. I could not escape this pain. Sitting, standing,
walking, laying down it did not make a difference. There was absolutely
no relief. I don’t think my housemates understood
the depth of my pain. It hurt so bad yet I would half laugh half cry
and since it was my butt, and as I say to the girls all the time butts
are always funny they just would make jokes about my broken bum.
By the 3rd day something odd
happened…now if it happened to anyone else or if it weren’t so painful
and infringing on the quality of my life I would have found it
fascinating. But since it was so painful and was infringing on
the quality of my life I wasn’t that amused. Let me explain the
phenomenon to you...every now and then when I would attempt to go from a
sitting position to a standing one I would get stuck. Not stuck as in
the pain was too much and I was too wimpy to push
through it…oh no…I was literally stuck as in my body was no longer
functioning. The first couple of times it happened when I was on the
couch or getting out of bed. Chuck and the girls would have to come and
pull me to an upright position. And then the
unthinkable happened…I got stuck mid stance as I was getting off the
toilet. There I was pants around my ankles hovering precariously over
the pot. What to do? What to do? Now Chuck and I have a very open and
honest relationship. He has painted my toe
nails for me when my pregnant belly gets in the way, he had rubbed my
fake tanning lotion on my back for me and helped me in the hospital
after the girls were born but even this was too much for our
relationship to survive. I had to go to plan B. I called
for Anna, my 3 year old. I knew she would have my back. NOPE!!!
Wrong, I asked her to come in to the bathroom to help me. She stood
outside the door and she answered with a resounding NO and a voice
dripping with utter disgust. Are you friggin kidding
me Anna? This is the same girl who will barge in and pull the shower
curtain back so she can hand me a juice box to open, or walk in while I
am mid pee asking where her Strawberry Shortcake Pez dispenser, that she
hasn’t seen in over 3 months, is. Apparently
she had completely forgotten the hundreds of diapers I changed for her,
all the poopie accidents I cleaned while she was toilet training, the
ultimate sacrifices I would make when I would give her my last
Pop-Tarts…she could not help me with this one simple
request. Finally Chuck convinced her and she came in and lent a
hand…and boy did she delight in telling everyone she had to help me off
the toilet.
So this pain persists all weekend long. 8:30
Monday morning could not come fast enough. At 8:29 and a half I started
dialing my OB’s number. I get through right away, they recommend PT
but I would need to see my primary MD to set it
up. Great. Her office doesn’t open for another 30 minutes!!
Thankfully I live to see 9 a.m. I call and they squeeze me in later
that morning. Yup, sure enough it is my sciatic nerve and I will need
PT. She sets me up with one in my home town. I decide
to stop in on my way home…that way they can see exactly how miserable I
am…I was scared that they might not get it if I were just to call and
set it up. They got it! I was able to snag an appointment for the next
day. Crap!! I was supposed to work the
next day. How the hell was I supposed to do that. I can barely pull
my pants on how was I actually going to work with teeny, tiny babies. I
was nervous I would be sitting holding one, the parents would come in
and they would expect me to stand up and hand
over their child. What if I got stuck? They would think I was some
weirdo refusing to hand their kid over, security would be called and I
would still be stuck unable to pass the baby off, a taser may be
involved, perhaps some type of child endangerment charge…but
then it hit me…an even worse fate. I am 7.5 months pregnant. I have
to pee, a lot. I would more likely than not have to pee several times
during my shift at work. What if I got stuck on the toilet at work?
That would be a disaster. There is a locker
room with 3 toilets. I could take my chance in there, but it could be
hours before someone came in and then they would have to crawl under the
stall to help me. I could use one of the single toilet staff bathrooms
but I would need to leave it unlocked in
case of emergency but then someone could just walk in on me then they
run the risk of burning their corneas if they saw my belly in all its
glory…or I could use the single bathroom that is reserved for the
overnight call rooms, it has a call light with a
pull string attached to it. I could use that but then I run the risk
of a whole slew of people coming to my rescue and that would be
overkill. It was decided. I needed to call out. I ended up having to take 2 days off...
So I go for my first PT appointment. I had no idea what to expect. It was a very odd experience to say the least. At 40 years old I was the youngest in the facility by a good 40 years. But I soldiered on. I meet the therapist, he seems nice enough. He asks me questions, has me walk and do a few other little exercises to see my range of motion etc. Then he has me get on a table while he tries to "release" the pinched nerve. Sounds good to me. Well, turns out it was kind of awkward. He is pushing and rubbing my butt. He was totally professional and was all business and I had all my clothes on, but it was weird to have a man I met about 15 minutes ago massaging my ass. But I quickly got over my little wig out when it started to feel slightly better. As I was leaving he told me that it would probably get worse before it gets better. Truer words have never been spoken. I went home feeling a little better, I woke up the next day still feeling pretty good. I got down on the floor to do my exercises and it happened. I got stuck!! Sara and Anna tried to help but I don't think the biggest construction crane would have been able to move me. It was awful. I had them drag a chair over in the hopes I would be able to kind of climb up it, to no avail. After 15 minutes pass I have them get the phone and I call Chuck at work. Not that he can do anything...he is 45 minutes away but I felt the responsible thing to do was at least tell another adult that I was stuck on the floor. I told him that I would give it another 10-15 minutes and then I would need to go to plan B...not sure what plan B was going to be but something was going to have to give and soon! In the meantime I was asking Sara to show me how she would call for help if I were really hurt. She knows how to call 911, she knows our address etc. So I move on to Anna, might as well use this down time (pun intended) to create a teachable moment. So as I am teaching her how to call 911 I am surveying the room. If there were a true need to call 911 I would most likely lose my children to the state. The house looked like something out of The Lord of the Flies. There was half eaten cereal bowls lying around, drinks from the past few days littering the sides of the couches...Anna God love her looked like she just walked out of a third world slum. Her hair hadn't been washed in days (I was unable to bathe myself let alone bend over a tub to wash them), she had Nutella smeared from her mouth up to her eye brows...her shirt had marker all over it and there were no pants to speak of, just undies. Fortuantlely about 5 minutes after realizing I was only a few more empty goldfish packages away from starring in an episode of Hoarders the nerve released and I was able to get up. Good thing I did because just as I stood up the girls were right there to knock me back down. Figuratively, not literally. Sara starts in with, "You are ruining our summer", "you said we were going to have play dates and cousin sleepovers", "you don't take us to the park, you don't do crafts or play with us anymore and you don't even clean the house anymore"...so of course her partner in crime chimes is with, "yeah mom, you ruined our summer!" I lost it and just burst into tears. I hadn't slept in 5 days, I was in excruciating pain, my kids hate me and oh yeah, I am still pregnant. They see me sobbing and they are stunned. They just stare at me horrified and then Sara says, "don't cry mom, when we see people cry it makes our eyes water." But I couldn't stop...the tears just kept coming and coming. They slink off and return a few minutes later with a picutre of a heart with a handwritten note that says, I love u mom. They also announce that I didn't ruin their whole summer, just some of it. So of course that makes me cry more. Sara very quietly asks if daddy can come home. I tell them he is still at work but will be home in 4 hours. They beg for me to call him to come home. I think they were afraid of me. I am so beat down I call. He comes home. I end up taking some Benadryl and get a few hours sleep. To make ammends they try to help me with my stretches. The first time Anna is sitting above me on a chair. I am laying on the floor. She leans over a little too far and falls on me. Then a few minutes later she is playing with a plastic sword and drops it on my face. Another time they are in charge of counting to 30 while I do this incredibly painful stretch. Anna skips a number, Sara reprimands her and suggests they start over. I am yelling, "You are on 15...for the love of God just start back up at 16!!" So it goes like this for a few days but by the time Friday rolls around I am managing to walk a little better and I am not getting stuck so I drag my sorry self to work...I would have rented a Hoveround at this point....I needed to get out of the house and away from the kids. I think they were just as happy that I went out for a little while.
I woke up yesterday feeling absolutely fine. It was as if the whole sciatic nerve thing never happened. I ended up going to the doctor for an ultrasound, just to make sure things were going well...I was feeling a little different and was told to come in. Turns out the baby has now turned into this weird position but I will take it. Apparently the way the baby had been laying was most likely pressing on my nerve causing the problem. The tech said not to worry, that there was still time for the baby to move back into position. I told her I hope not, I am delivering by c-section...this baby can stay right side up and backwards until I am wheeled into the OR!! I am not one to pray but I am sending out some requests that this baby does not get back into that awful position. Oh, and as I was leaving the nurse practioner tells me, "this is going to be a monster of a baby"...that is nice to hear...yesterday the estimated weight was already 4.7 pounds. I still have 9 weeks to go. Let that sink in for a minute....
So I go for my first PT appointment. I had no idea what to expect. It was a very odd experience to say the least. At 40 years old I was the youngest in the facility by a good 40 years. But I soldiered on. I meet the therapist, he seems nice enough. He asks me questions, has me walk and do a few other little exercises to see my range of motion etc. Then he has me get on a table while he tries to "release" the pinched nerve. Sounds good to me. Well, turns out it was kind of awkward. He is pushing and rubbing my butt. He was totally professional and was all business and I had all my clothes on, but it was weird to have a man I met about 15 minutes ago massaging my ass. But I quickly got over my little wig out when it started to feel slightly better. As I was leaving he told me that it would probably get worse before it gets better. Truer words have never been spoken. I went home feeling a little better, I woke up the next day still feeling pretty good. I got down on the floor to do my exercises and it happened. I got stuck!! Sara and Anna tried to help but I don't think the biggest construction crane would have been able to move me. It was awful. I had them drag a chair over in the hopes I would be able to kind of climb up it, to no avail. After 15 minutes pass I have them get the phone and I call Chuck at work. Not that he can do anything...he is 45 minutes away but I felt the responsible thing to do was at least tell another adult that I was stuck on the floor. I told him that I would give it another 10-15 minutes and then I would need to go to plan B...not sure what plan B was going to be but something was going to have to give and soon! In the meantime I was asking Sara to show me how she would call for help if I were really hurt. She knows how to call 911, she knows our address etc. So I move on to Anna, might as well use this down time (pun intended) to create a teachable moment. So as I am teaching her how to call 911 I am surveying the room. If there were a true need to call 911 I would most likely lose my children to the state. The house looked like something out of The Lord of the Flies. There was half eaten cereal bowls lying around, drinks from the past few days littering the sides of the couches...Anna God love her looked like she just walked out of a third world slum. Her hair hadn't been washed in days (I was unable to bathe myself let alone bend over a tub to wash them), she had Nutella smeared from her mouth up to her eye brows...her shirt had marker all over it and there were no pants to speak of, just undies. Fortuantlely about 5 minutes after realizing I was only a few more empty goldfish packages away from starring in an episode of Hoarders the nerve released and I was able to get up. Good thing I did because just as I stood up the girls were right there to knock me back down. Figuratively, not literally. Sara starts in with, "You are ruining our summer", "you said we were going to have play dates and cousin sleepovers", "you don't take us to the park, you don't do crafts or play with us anymore and you don't even clean the house anymore"...so of course her partner in crime chimes is with, "yeah mom, you ruined our summer!" I lost it and just burst into tears. I hadn't slept in 5 days, I was in excruciating pain, my kids hate me and oh yeah, I am still pregnant. They see me sobbing and they are stunned. They just stare at me horrified and then Sara says, "don't cry mom, when we see people cry it makes our eyes water." But I couldn't stop...the tears just kept coming and coming. They slink off and return a few minutes later with a picutre of a heart with a handwritten note that says, I love u mom. They also announce that I didn't ruin their whole summer, just some of it. So of course that makes me cry more. Sara very quietly asks if daddy can come home. I tell them he is still at work but will be home in 4 hours. They beg for me to call him to come home. I think they were afraid of me. I am so beat down I call. He comes home. I end up taking some Benadryl and get a few hours sleep. To make ammends they try to help me with my stretches. The first time Anna is sitting above me on a chair. I am laying on the floor. She leans over a little too far and falls on me. Then a few minutes later she is playing with a plastic sword and drops it on my face. Another time they are in charge of counting to 30 while I do this incredibly painful stretch. Anna skips a number, Sara reprimands her and suggests they start over. I am yelling, "You are on 15...for the love of God just start back up at 16!!" So it goes like this for a few days but by the time Friday rolls around I am managing to walk a little better and I am not getting stuck so I drag my sorry self to work...I would have rented a Hoveround at this point....I needed to get out of the house and away from the kids. I think they were just as happy that I went out for a little while.
I woke up yesterday feeling absolutely fine. It was as if the whole sciatic nerve thing never happened. I ended up going to the doctor for an ultrasound, just to make sure things were going well...I was feeling a little different and was told to come in. Turns out the baby has now turned into this weird position but I will take it. Apparently the way the baby had been laying was most likely pressing on my nerve causing the problem. The tech said not to worry, that there was still time for the baby to move back into position. I told her I hope not, I am delivering by c-section...this baby can stay right side up and backwards until I am wheeled into the OR!! I am not one to pray but I am sending out some requests that this baby does not get back into that awful position. Oh, and as I was leaving the nurse practioner tells me, "this is going to be a monster of a baby"...that is nice to hear...yesterday the estimated weight was already 4.7 pounds. I still have 9 weeks to go. Let that sink in for a minute....
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