it’s not about you

So.

Sometime in April, Killian feel asleep on the way to the grocery store and I did something very stupid: I carried him around the store in my arms while I hunched over pushing the shopping cart.

That was a VERY BIG MISTAKE. The next morning, I woke up and could hardly move. I waited it out a few days, figuring I would feel better and when I didn’t, I made an appt. with my chiropractor. She wasn’t in the office that week, so I saw someone else, who came up to adjust me. I was very out of sorts.

After that visit, I felt much better and a week later, went in to see my usual practitioner and got adjusted. I kept having pain in my arm, neck and shoulder, and was experiencing some numbness in parts of my arm. During all this, something else happened at my chiropractor’s office that I shall just describe as:

DRAMA.

So I broke up with my chiropractor. It took two months and lots of stress and no returned phone calls, but finally, that whole mess is over and settled and I never have to go back there ever, ever again. PRAISE JESUS.

I hurt my neck last week. Now keep in mind that this problem with my arm, and the numbness and the mild pain, has never really gone away. Last Monday, I was toweling off my hair after my shower and felt something in my neck go funny. Taylor was in town and I had him massage my neck a bit. Sometimes, this trick works.

But it didn’t. By Wednesday, I was in some serious pain, and could not feel two of my fingers and part of the back of my arm. I looked on yelp and found a chiropractor in my neighborhood that was well-reviewed. I called, spoke to the doctor and made an appointment. They got me in that day, took some X-rays, did some massage therapy, some ultrasound therapy, and what I think was muscle stimulation therapy with a TENS unit. I began to feel better.

Friday, I went in again for an review of my films and an actual adjustment. I received some of the same therapies I had received on Wednesday. I thought I would start to feel better. Then I woke up on Saturday morning.

I went to a conference that day, and by the after-lunch session, I was in so much pain, that I couldn’t even focus on what the presenters were saying and I was having trouble moving my head at all. Despite downing Advil, my neck hurt, my shoulders hurt, all the muscles in my back were in spasms and I was losing feeling down my left arm again. I went home, took some Extra Strength Tylenol and took to bed for a couple of hours. The pain was excruciating and completely debilitating.

I woke up, ate some protein, took some more Advil and went back to my conference for the keynote. Sunday was also very bad, but I spent as much time as I could laying down without trying to hold my head up too much. Joshua, my better half, didn’t complain and took the kids out for half the day so I could rest, even though I had been gone the whole day before.

I had another appointment this morning, and spent the entire morning until then watching the clock, hoping and praying that the chiropractor could help me. I also noticed, that in addition to my neck, shoulder and arm problems, the the uppermost rib on the right side of my chest, just underneath my collarbone, was bulging. That area is also sore and tender to the touch. I know this is all connected somehow, but I’m not sure how or what to do about it.

I told the chiropractor about how much pain I’ve been in all weekend, and he seems hopeful that this is my body getting used to the adjustment. I’m pretty skeptical. I felt like the adjustment on Friday did more harm than good. I had been feeling better, and then exponentially worse after the adjustment. I told this to him as well.

He felt my spine and my neck, and started some adjustments. I began to cry. I cried throughout the rest of my visit.

Now, I am still sore, but I am hoping that today’s adjustment will begin to help. My arm, neck and shoulder have that pins and needles feeling. Is that good? Because I know that’s the feeling I get after my foot’s been asleep, and I’m hoping that with all the numbness I’ve been experiencing, this is feeling returning to those parts of my body. If not, then I’m going to completely freak out. The rib on my chest is still bulging and is progressively more sore. I just hope that tonight I can sleep.

People, I have been in SO MUCH PAIN. I CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I can’t take a shirt off without gasping, because it hurts. I can’t pick up my children without pain - or without fear that somehow, my attempt at taking care of them is going to debilitate my body. I can’t turn my head to the left or look up without pain, and I can’t talk on the phone without using my hands. My shoulder pops almost every time I lift my arm - which is quite often, so I can shake it about in attempts to get the feeling back in it. It’s my left arm and I am left-handed.

I have been irritable and cranky and I have zero appetite. OTC pain relievers don’t seem to be helping me at all. And I’m terrified.

I’m so scared that I am never going to get better, that I am never going to heal. It’s been three months since this started and I am only getting worse. Joshua tells me that I will get better and I want to believe him but I just don’t know that I do.

When I was pregnant with Killian, and I started experiencing the pubic symphysis pain, all my health care providers told me that it was due to pregnancy hormones and that after my birth, I would begin to feel better. My (former) chiropractor told me that I had the worst case she had ever seen.

And you know what? Killian will be two years old next month and the reality of my life is that, aside from this neck pain, I have dealt with pubic bone pain EVERY DAY for the past two and a half years. That is usually mild and under the radar, as, sad to say, I’ve gotten used to pain being a part of my life. It flares up quite often and I have a bad several days, but lately, THAT has also gotten worse - two weeks ago, I couldn’t sit and last weekend, I was limping when I walked because it hurt so much.

I’m 29 years old and I’m so scared that I’m going to be a chronic pain sufferer for the rest of my life. I can’t do the things I want to do and I can’t be the mom I want to be because I am PHYSICALLY UNABLE to do things I used to take for granted - like chasing my daughter through the park, or lifting my son up to touch the ceiling. And that petrifies me.

And I haven’t written about it much on here because I feel like when I was pregnant I wrote about it SO MUCH, and in the midst of all of that, I was treated TERRIBLY by people who were supposed to love and support me, but instead tore me down during an extremely vulnerable time in my life so they could teach me some lesson. And I’ve never gotten over that. And that has kept me from continuing to write about things here.

And that adds to my fear, that if I write about how scared I am and how I feel like I’m spiraling into some black hole because of the physical pain in my body, that people will take advantage of that to make an example of me.

So there.

I said it.

And I think I’m glad I did. Clearly, I need to find a good therapist out here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Rants, Body & Soul, Parenthood, Prayers, Family, Pregnant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.