me to a T - Tracey Odachowski

Ugh. Been meaning to post all week just to get it all off of my chest so I can sleep. I don’t know why I haven’t. But I guess there is no better time than the present.

I’m sick of pain.

I hate it. Hate every last minute of it. Just when I take a few steps ahead, I fall behind again.

This darn leg/hip/back/whatever of mine is driving me insane. Granted things have been going pretty well for a little while w/ it. We changed my exercise routine at therapy, and I could really tell they were working. But SOMETHING happened at therapy on Thursday, and I felt as bad as I did a year ago: taking 2 minutes to hobble across the room, pain shooting down my leg, the whole nine yards. It was soooo weird. I was feeling fine. Then, in the middle of one of the exercises, my left thigh was REALLY feeling ‘the burn’ (you know, that whole lactic acid feeling you get when working out). During the next exercise, I couldn’t seem to keep my left hip up. So the assistant had me turn over and squeeze my buttocks, to which the left simply didn’t respond. At all. So we stopped to wait for my therapist. During that 10 minutes, the pain slowly built up until I was simply in tears. Right there in the middle of the gym. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t even lift my left leg up to cross my legs. Nothing. So, no exercises for a week. But the pain was still there - a TENS machine, 2 vicodin, 1 valium, ice, a heating pad, and Biofreeze gel did NOTHING. And, of course, when I tried to go to bed that night, for some idiotic, inexplicable reason, valium keeps me awake, so I couldn’t sleep. Finally I did, though, only to have to wake up at 5:30 am to go to a doctor appointment. You see, about the only good part of this story is that I already had an appt with my Orthopedist on Friday. What a wonderful freakin doctor she is! LOVE her. She explained that it was probably just a flare-up, gave me to shots of numbing medicine along two of the spasming muscles in my butt, and sent me on my way. At least I could walk better!

So, the weekend has been a slow recovery from whatever the heck happened last week. Frustrating. Oh, and I’ve also decided that I can’t stand it when people try to make me feel better about all of this and say, “Well, at least you have been able to stay home with your kids b/c of the disability.” Yeah. Sure. Very true. But I would much rather be working and be able to spend QUALITY time w/ my kids doing stuff w/ them than having to hear Chris explain to Gabe why I can’t walk up the stairs to read stories in bed. Pisses me off. (sorry for the french). I hate not being able to do more fun things w/ the kids, all because I slow us up. Or taking more trips. ANYTHING really.

So that’s it, I guess. Now that I’ve finally written it down, perhaps I can put my crappy mood behind me and get back to my usual sunny self. So in an effort to do that, let’s turn the mood of this post around…

The Olympics are on!!! And I’m not pregnant during them! Granted, it’s the SUMMER Olympics that I’m always pregnant for. Which, I better not be pregnant for that one, either!!! Chris and I are soaking up the sports for the only time that we ever watch them every two years. I even watched a hockey game yesterday! All b/c it is the Olympics! We went to an ice skating rink today for a birthday party, and all I could remember was wanting to be a figure skater or gymnast when I was little. I even bough a Peggy Fleming instruction book from one of the Scholastic book flyers…because I thought I was going to learn to ice skate on the 10′x10′ patch of ice in the back yard??? That makes me laugh! Yeah, no lessons and such for me as a kid. My parents made TJ and I play softball b/c that’s what they played. Our parent were awesome at that sport (heck, dad is 61 and he STILL plays and beats all of the young kids at it). TJ and I, to put it kindly, sucked. Big time. Darn sport made my nose bigger! (literally, it did. I broke my nose trying to catch a ball in 7th grade. Did I mention I sucked? You are supposed to catch it with the mitt!!!) But that was pretty much the only sport available in the community when we were kids, so that’s what we played. Thank goodness for gym class and the hockey stick! So, anywho, I get to live out my Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hammill dreams watching the Olympics every 4 years. Maybe Emily will want to be a figure skater…you gotta live through your kids, right?

Sorry for the downer above. I’m back to my regularly scheduled programming now!