Just what I need . . .

Last night I did one of my favorite workout videos. (I've been exercising 3-4 times a week pretty consistently since last fall when I started doing workout videos, and it's made a difference.) I did my cool down stretching and sat down to veg on the internet for a minute before getting in the shower. Ryan was in the kitchen and realized that we were out of milk, so he offered to go to the store. Ann Marie had fallen asleep on the couch before dinner, so I said I would get her ready for bed.

While I was changing her diaper I noticed my lower back was a little sore. Ann Marie refused to eat any dinner and insisted she just wanted to go to bed, so I carried her to her room half-asleep.

Then when I bent over to set her down my back suddenly hurt really badly and I ended up dropping her (she was okay and just went to sleep). That was odd. I decided to try and get in the shower, which reminded me the whites were still in the washing machine, so I went to take care of that first. After bending down a few times to get handfuls of clothes, I stood up and the muscles in my lower back had a really painful spasm, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to finish, and the shower wasn't happening either. In fact, it was as much as I could do to get some ibuprofen and somehow get myself into bed.

I've given birth without pain medication three times and this pain was worse. I could barely walk, bending at the hips at all was excruciating, and it felt like I had no strength in my muscles. So obviously I was pretty concerned.

Ryan got home and I told him what was going on, but even with his help I couldn't really find a specific spot that felt sore to the touch.

Around 5:00 in the morning I got up to use the bathroom and take more ibuprofen, and standing at the sink trying to get the pill bottle opened I got so dizzy with the pain I thought I was going to pass out. So I called Ryan for help and somehow got myself down on the floor. In a minute I was better again, and with Ryan's help I was able to get some more ibuprofen and get back to bed. I googled my symptoms and was thinking I had probably strained the muscles in my lower back or hips, and I figured we were going to need to go to the doctor in the morning.

I wasn't sure if this was an urgent care situation or an emergency room situation, and I don't want to go to the emergency room when an urgent care will work, but finally we decided we'd try urgent care. Ryan got the kids off to school, and I found a friend to take Ann Marie while he took me to urgent care. I was super disappointed because I had been planning to meet some friends at the park.

The doctor asked a bunch of questions and had me move different ways. At one point she asked me to lift up my legs one at a time and couldn't understand why I couldn't lift them up higher. "Why are you not flexible?" she asked. Well, because I'm not! I do stretches and things, but I've just never been able to touch my toes (I can get pretty close now if I've been exercising). Anyway, she decided it would be a good idea to do an x-ray and make sure I didn't have scoliosis. My spine looked fine in the x-rays, so that was a relief. It looks like I was right and it was a muscle strain. So they gave me some pain/anti-inflammatory/muscle spasm prescriptions and I'm supposed to rest and be careful about lifting (because of course I never have to do things like bend over to pick up my 34-pound child . . .)

I've been getting better over the course of the day. Certain movements still hurt a lot, but I can at least do them now and I can walk around slowly. The pain isn't constant; I just feel it doing certain movements where I need my back muscles (and by the way, you use your lower back muscles a lot, in case you haven't noticed). So hopefully over the next few days the muscles will be feeling better. I'll have to take it easy for a while. The hardest part is when I'm rolling over and when I'm standing up, but at least the muscles are doing what I tell them to again.

I don't like needing help. I like being able to do a lot of things and get stuff done without help, even if I'm having a hard time. It's really inconvenient that I can't do stuff. Ryan's got the kids helping with dinner right now. Hopefully they'll be good and help me out. I guess I'm grateful that they're big enough to be pretty independent and kind of helpful (because lifting and carrying a baby around right now wouldn't really work).

The silver lining in all this is that I found out I've lost five pounds since February. My secret is smaller portion sizes, more vegetables, and exercise, if you're wondering. And I didn't give up ice cream. I'm finally back to what I weighed before I was pregnant with Heidi. But of course I could have found that out by borrowing someone's bathroom scale rather than hurting my back.