I've started several posts, but have yet to finish any of them. The last four days have been a blur of blinding pain that ranks right up there with childbirth where my threshold is concerned. I don't get sick very often, and if I do come down with something it doesn't usually take me out.
This year though, I've been felled twice by influenza, twice by conjunctivitis and now, this weekend-a bulging disc. People, I am here to tell you-I have an incredibly high tolerance for pain. I'm a tough cookie. But the ache that has taken up residence in my lower back is so great that I sought the help of a chiropractor, something I've never done previously, and I SCREAMED loudly three times on the chiropractor's torture chamber table. I am not a screamer. I'll wince and grimace, but outside of labor and delivery, never scream during a medical procedure. I was left breathless from this agony, and until this morning, I've been walking around hunched over like an 80 year old woman with degenerative osteoporosis. I was lamenting my fate to a friend who shared that her 39th year was also fraught with illness and physical ailments. She believes it was just her body transitioning to middle age.
I have my own theories about my litany of infirmities. I think the reason I've been pounded by one virus after another this year is because the kids have a two year old brother at their dad's house. Said toddler is in day care, and that makes my kids couriers for the latest bacterium that are making the rounds of the Kindercare crowd. The pink eye-I don't even know what caused that. Another friend mentioned something in passing about an epidemic, but I'm pretty sure I would have been up to speed on that if true. I read two newspapers every morning and I scoured the Internets for any word on conjunctivitis outbreaks and I came up empty handed. We'll chalk that up to bad luck.
The bulging disc, I am quite sure, was caused by a perfect storm of physiological mishaps. First, I got a new truck,
which is much bigger than my previous truck and requires a bit of a hop and a twist to get into. (The truck is luscious. But, I tend to weep openly at the gas pump.) Next, I got very aggressive with my cracked heels last week during a pedicure that I performed. I actually made a bad problem much worse, and my left foot turned bloody and tender. I then proceeded to go shopping at the Mall of America, and completed all of my outdoor chores while favoring my left foot. Brilliant. My yard work involved mowing a large and hilly lawn, planting four peonies, ten daylilies, one bleeding heart, ten pots of flowers, and spreading fifteen bags of mulch. Much of the planting was done in gravel beds, which required no small amount of excavation work. At the risk of sounding like a martyr, all yard work is done without assistance because I was alone for the better part of the weekend, and besides, I'm a relentless perfectionist when it comes to my yard and flower gardens.
(Wait'll you see that baby in July. We're talking an explosion of color. Yeaaahhhh!)
So, after my third straight day on the chiropractor's table, I'm finally feeling human again. I was admonished to leave the yard work to others this weekend. I think Mario may have inherited some of my anal retentive qualities, so I'll recruit him for some of the detail work-I think I can count on him to make sure the mowing lines are tight and straight. I'll put Alex and Drew on the backyard, where I'm not as concerned about perfection. Annelise is on flower duty-that Sequoia holds a lot of plants, and I feel compelled to fill it, whether I'm able to get down on my knees or not.
