Still not well enough to return to work
The old guilt is back again, because I have to take another day off work for the pain. Let’s back up a day though, so I can catch you up on Monday.
I knew Sunday night I wouldn’t be in any shape to go into work on Monday, so I’d made the necessary calls. The pain woke me up before 8am on Monday, and I had to cram food down my throat to line my stomach in order to take my pills. I started off with one and a half Tylenol 3 first thing in the morning because of the pain. I had decided that due to the pain level (8.5 on the scale), I would be better off in bed than on the couch with the laptop. My husband was getting ready for work and was off in the shower. Me being impatient, I decided to set up for a day in bed despite being in a lot of pain. I was clutching a heating pad with one hand and moving blankets and such with my other hand. I decided this would actually make a great video – detailing that it’s hard work on a person in pain just to set up for a day in bed if one still wanted to have a connection to the outside world. I did a video outtake and settled into bed, exhausted. I think I fell back to sleep at that point, I can’t remember.
Within the first few hours in bed, my lower back and buttocks decided they could not take the pain of sitting in bed. I moved to my computer chair at that point. This is unusual – my body normally cannot handle sitting upright when I’m in so much pain. But the lower back really needed the support of a chair.
I spent much of the day wrestling with iMovie ’09 on the laptop before launching iMovie ’05 on my desktop machine and figuring that out much faster than iMovie ’09. I had created a video back in February to update everyone on the past year of my life – it’s been that long since I uploaded any videos to youtube!! And now it’s taken another month on top of that to figure out all the edits I wanted to do for the movie. The end result is that I’m getting much better at making videos.
I ended up taking three Tylenol 3 and 600mg Ibuprofen over the course of the day, yesterday. I stayed as constantly medicated as I could. By the time I went to bed late last night, the bleeding and the pain had subsided. My kidneys were throbbing from all the Tylenol and Ibuprofen I’d fed them.
This morning I woke up with a headache and stuffed up ears, full body sore joints, and a feeling of dread in my pelvis. I ate some leftover pancakes, drank some goat milk, took a half a Tylenol 3 and 600mg Ibuprofen and called in sick to work, expecting the worst. And then extreme fatigue claimed me and I crawled back into bed and slept for another three and a half hours.
The pain woke me at 11:48am. I cooked some leftover yummy Thai food my neighbor had brought me yesterday out of the kindness of her heart (my inner Southerner says “bless her soul”), and before I could eat, the bleeding and pain started up again as I knew it would.
I’m on round 2 of a half Tylenol 3. The joint pain is still flaring, and my legs are bloated to the point of feeling very sore from the thighs to the ankles, and especially under the knees. The bleeding didn’t get as heavy as I thought it would, and the pelvic pain didn’t get as bad as I thought it would. It spiked at about a 7 and is now down to 5.5 on the scale.
My guilty conscience says with pain at a 5.5 on the scale, I could have gone in to work. But then I snap out of the guilt and remind myself that I’m still on Tylenol 3 and Ibuprofen to manage said pain, that’s WHY it’s at a 5.5 on the scale. AND I’m not stooping and bending, kneeling, sitting and walking like I would have to do at work. So I can cut the guilt crap out RIGHT NOW. I don’t work no desk job anymore.
So that’s where it’s at today. I wish the waiting lists weren’t so long at the dispensaries to get free reiki or body work done. I would LOVE a full body massage right now. Le sigh.
Maybe I’ll find enough strength to scrub out the tub to take a hot bubble bath.
Oh – side note – I’m back on the herbal powder my acupuncturist gave me. We decided to give it another try, see if my body has reactions to it. So far so good. I’ve been drinking it 3x/day using a teaspoon of the powdered herbs. As for other pain management, I’m still doing large hip circles, slow stretches, and basic yoga poses.
Lastly – the weather. This is the third sunny day I have missed enjoying during this cycle due to the pain.