stuff is cool

Ole Tready Bear has gotten me down already. I started way too strong. I hopped on there and did an hour a day thrice (4 times maybe) this week. About an hour later each time, my back would hurt pretty severely but then it would go away by bedtime. But not this weekend. I worked out on Friday. At dinner with my Baker friends it started to get distracting, and by bedtime it was bad enough that I took a muscle relaxant. Saturday found me abed all day until I rallied to go to dinner with my mom and some family friends. Maybe the wine helped for the time, or the decadent food (sirloin topped with lump crabmeat and 3 tabel-side flambe desserts) but during the drive home last night, around 10, I started to hunch over in pain. It seemed to take hours to get home, and I collapsed on the bed when I got here.

I talked to both my mom and Danny to let them know I was home. Over the next 15 minutes, my back went from being really really sore to being ON FIRE. I could not move my head. I could not breath normally. I called my mom crying because I was scared and alone. I had taken not one but 2 of my strongest pain meds and my strongest muscle relaxant but it takes almost an hour for them to work. I just sobbed to my mom on the phone and she helped me breathe normally. Something made me cough and it felt like a gunshot to the chest. Soon I just told my mom I had to get off the phone because I couldn’t hold it to my head anymore.

I lay there awkwardly on my bed, on my back, unable or unwilling to move a muscle. The TV was on and I listened to a show about the history of Siberia. I couldn’t turn my head to watch it, but what I heard was interesting.

I started to relax and dozed off, and when I woke up an hour or so later it was like I was in a whole different body. When I go from feeling like I’ll never walk again to being able to get up and take a shower, the two extremes confuse me. During one I can’t comprehend the other. I try to remind myself that the pain always goes away. But it also always comes back.

Today is better. But now I am again dealing with the back pain that plagued me in April. I inflamed my spine again, obviously by walking too much on the treadmill. I should have started out at half an hour each time. Now I’ll have to talk to my doctor and get things straightened out before I can get back to working out.

I love LOVE my treadmill. I love watching CSI and just walking. I just have to be careful not to overdo it.

Wish me luck.