Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do and damn the consequences. By which I mean, you will feel them later and it won't be pretty.

Work was a pretty laid back day as we didn't have a lot of kids. Part of that was the fact that a lot of parents are still on vacation or have grandparents in or something and the kids stay home. The other part was that we had a mini-blizzard this morning so some parents decided to keep their kids home. I'm assuming. I really don't know. I can't read their minds.

However, sometimes when numbers are low, regular staff get taken out to do things. Today, we had one of our regular staff in the kitchen and another shoveling. Also in our room was a pregnant lady. At one point, I had the best back in the room, and that's saying something. I had to change two diapers. There was no choice.

So I did what I had to do. Bent my knees, told them to hold on tight, and slowly moved them to the changing table. And it hurt. But like I said, I had no choice. It was either me, the pregnant one, or the one who could barely walk from shoveling snow. I didn't do a lot else in terms of the back and you can bet I laid down on the floor for a while when I could.

And then when I got home, I had to do dishes. Roomie is away so it's only me to clean and eat and all. So I had to do the dishes. Took a lot longer than I expected because I needed to break, but I got a lot of Battlestar Galatica watched while I was doing them. I watched three episodes tonight! Woot! Love that show. I may have mentioned that before.

So it seems that sometimes, I gotta do things that my back isn't going to like. But I have to do it or else things won't get done. It sucks, but that's the way it is. I just have to extremely careful when I do things like that.

So today's positive..well...a few today. One is that I watched three episodes of BSG. Another would be the fact that I did manage to get my dishes done. Also, not a lot of kids make for a less stressful day at work which is always good. Not that work is stressful but would you rather handle 4 or 8 kids? At once? Exactly.

Tomorrow's New Years Eve. Going out with my best friend and his woman. She's performing and I haven't seen her band before so that should be good times. No kiss at midnight, but that hasn't changed in the last 5 years. Unless something happens, but I doubt it. And I will be very careful with the back tomorrow night. No crazy dancing.

Also, I'm not doing a year in review. I know what my year was like. Some parts were amazingly awesome, some were stressful, some were downright depressing. And that's not the blog for this anyways.

May not update in the next few days, because of holidays and all. So Happy New Years! Hopefully in the new year I'll be more on my way to recovery.

Weekend Update

I shouldn't be writing. I should be going to bed. I have to go back to work tomorrow which means a 6am wake up. I've been getting up at 10 or 11 lately.

And in my emotional state, I shouldn't be writing. I'll need to keep reminding myself to keep my deals out of this.

So, the back. Yesterday seemed to be pretty good. I seemed to have a good balance of being resting and active. I was also social. Went out and saw people on three different occasions. Most people I've seen all holiday. But there was a good balance of sitting and resting the back and getting up and moving around.

Except the last one, at the bookstore. That might have over done it. Back started to go and I found myself having to lean on things, or sit down a lot. It was getting kind of annoying, trying to find a place.

Today wasn't too bad, except for the end of the second service today. I guess with a lot of singing comes a lot of back responsibilities to the point where it said "and we're done". Even a bow made my back hurt so it was more of a nod.

Then there was the choir Christmas potluck. I didn't bring my magic bag because it doesn't work with the way the chairs are in the back. And now, by the end of it, I'm done.

I'm done with several things anyway. That image of the guy throwing his papers in the air with a "fuck it all" look is pretty much me right now. And if I'm in an anger state, at least it's better than a depressed state. I can  be productive in this state. Kill lots of things on video games.

Anyways, in regards to the back, I feel like I'm done. At least for tonight. I'm ready for someone to give me a magical pill to make my back stop hurting and I can go back to a normal life.

I need the positive of today. I did a solo. It is one of the scariest solos in our repertoire. We process to the back, we're in the dark except for the candles in our hands. You get three notes, and then it's the solo. It's a cappella (meaning just voice, no music accompanying) and the rest of the piece depends on how well you do this solo. You go badly flat or sharp, and it's going to be off. I'm still not 100% sure exactly what happened. When the organ came in, it wasn't quite right. But I did it. And I'm told I did it well. Some even said it was the best they've heard me sing. So I must have done something right. And that's my positive of the day. I did that solo.

And that's it for now.

Balancing Act

Welll, look who came back to the blog. It's not that I forgot, just that it was better if I didn't post. As I've said before, this is not a forum for my personal/emotional problems and that's what it would have turned into the last few days if I went anywhere near this. So, I was good and actually listened to my own advice for once and stayed away.

So, what is this entry about? It's about balance.

I'm not talking about Balance Druid in World of Warcraft, although if I did play a druid, it'd be a balance since they're a ranged DPS which is my favourite form of DPS.

No, I'm talking about the balance between resting and doing things. When you have back pain, it's important to find that balance and it is not easy. Since I've been off work for the holidays, a lot of my time has been spent on my ass, eating chocolate and playing video games and watching Battlestar Galatica (which, if you haven't seen, you need to watch. Now. Whether you're a sci-fan fan/nerd or not. It's a great show! And I'm talking about the new one, not the old one. But I'm only on season 2 so if you give me spoilers I know several people who will beat you for ruining it for me). That resting is fine. I'm catching up on stuff and all is good. And then I get up to go do something.

Even now, I can feel the tension in my back, like the muscles are all pushed together. The magic bag works so much for it, and then it doesn't help unless I reheat it. When I ventured out to the mall earlier (the first place I've been since coming back from my grandfather's on Christmas day), I could feel the spasms in places I don't usually get them, like more on the side on the back.

How I managed to carry a printer, I'm not sure yet. It's not a big one, really, and the bags helped. I was gonna take a cab home but my friend had to pick up his girlfriend soon anyways and said he'd come get me. Got him a coffee for the help. Even if I didn't have the bad back though, I would have taken the cab home because that would have just been awkward to carry.

But, basically, that's where the problem is. It's all about balance. I guess that's what life is about too, but that's another entry for another blog. With back pain, you want to rest. But too much rest makes your muscles lazy, for lack of a better word. So when you try to do something, the muscles don't wanna do it and it hurts. But if it's not hurting, and you do too much, then you're just gonna make it hurt more.

So you need to find that balance between resting and being active enough to not make the pain worse. And it's not easy. I'm stubborn and I'll end up doing one of them more than I should. And no one can say where that balance is. You just gotta try it for yourself.

There's a lot of trial and error with back pain, whether it's from seeing if you can lift something, or trying a different way to move something, or even just seeing how long you can relax before your muscles forget how to work. And I'm assuming everyone is different and all the pain and thresholds are different.

You just gotta try it out and find that balance for yourself.

Ok, now I want to go back a balance druid on WoW.

Christmas Time

I haven't updated in a few days, and frankly, I should probably stay away from blogger tonight and tomorrow.

Without going into more details than necessary (basically, if you know things, you know more details about what I'm going on with here), Christmas isn't a great time for me. My sister passed away on Christmas morning 5 years ago, and this day hasn't been the same since.

Though honestly, I haven't felt a lot of Christmas spirit in years before then either.

I don't want to go into details, since this is not what this blog is for, but this Christmas isn't shaping up to much either.

So, let's just leave it at that and focus on today's positives.

My back has been pretty good today. That's definitely a positive. Maybe my bath salts last night worked well. Got some nice gifts too, so that's good.

And while I don't have my low notes, I have my high notes. It's usually opposite when I have a bad throat. And as a soprano, I need the high notes.

So I guess that's it. Like I said, I'll probably avoid this for a few days as this is supposed to be a soapbox for my back problems and not my personal/emotional problems.

Merry Christmas.

Not too bad until...

So this weekend wasn't too bad, back wise. I spent most of Saturday inside, alternating between being productive and resting, the back ended up alright. Some pains as I went down to the mall, but that was expected. I didn't walk down that time. Took the bus back and forth.

Today I got up and the back was actually doing good. Hardly any pain, and I felt like I was walking fine. And, despite the snow, it was a fairly good day.

Until the evening.

By about 5:30, the tingles were coming back. By the time I had finished with the evening service, the back was in it's regular pain. Part of it might have been just the daily stress. Part of it might have been going from hot to cold to hot to cold, etc. Part of it might have been some faux fighting with my friend (who said it was probably the hot and cold thing causing the pain). It was probably a little bit of all three. Feeling better after half an hour of lying down on the magic bag.

The lesson of today? Even though you feel good, doesn't mean you can still do what you used to. It will come back and hit you in the back.

So what were the positives of this weekend? Well, like I said, I was productive so I have the tree up and I finished these assignments I had to do. That was yesterday. Today's positive was...well, I guess seeing my friend and seeing how excited he was with the Christmas gift I got him, and just hanging out a bit in general. And I had chocolate today. A general positive that happened this weekend was that the winter solstice happened. That means that the days will slowly start to get longer. That means more sunlight. That means less SAD. So that's always a good thing.

I guess that's a bit of the weekend in a nutshell.

I'd like to hear back from the lawyers soon, but I highly doubt it'll happen. Not on Christmas week. Maybe in the New Year.

Pains and Positives

Yet again, we have another day that proves that I am getting worse and that I need help. I decided that I'd walk to the mall, but would stop at a friend's house along the way to give her a Christmas present. That'd be a shorter trip and I could sit for a bit. I did that and was on my way again.

However, the pain was terrible. Once again, I was walking around in the mall like a little old lady, inching my way through to do the last of my shopping. I know there were tears in my eyes as I made my way through the crowds.

Part of it was because my back hurts.

Part of it was because my pride hurts.

Having to arrange everything to correspond with buses or cabs instead of just walking like I used to is driving me insane. Watching people zoom pass me while I'm walking like a snail is not something I like. I'm the one who'd zoom through, getting what I needed and off again.

At the beginning of the year, it was my anxiety that kept me from my life. I didn't want to deal with the crowds. I had my rituals that I absolutely had to do before going anywhere or doing anything before I continued on. At the end of the year, it's my back that's making me want to stay home. If I stay home, I can rest and relax. I won't have to worry about having spasms in the middle of everything, or starting getting pains so bad that I just want to lie down wherever I am. If I stay home, my back will be ok.

But I can't do that because I have stuff to do and I'd get terrible cabin fever if I stayed home all the time.

Can't seem to win.

On to today's positive. Actually, there's several positives today. We had our Christmas party at work for the children. Seeing their faces as Santa came in the room, seeing them light up when he gave them their presents, seeing their smiles as they ran over to you exclaiming that they have a present for you and they watching to make sure you like what they gave you....it was really good. They were all just so happy and it was wonderful to see. Of course, the gifts I got were good too. I don't have to pay for a Tim's coffee for the next few weeks. But it's more for the kids, of course. That's what it's about.

I also got the winter collection of David's Tea, which includes Alpine Punch which is one of my favourites. I also had a s'mores blizzard which tasted awesome.

So...some good stuff in there today. Hopefully the weekend brings good too.

I know that I may not get a lot of readers, and I know some people probably don't care. This is more of a forum for me to discuss what's going through my head as I deal with pain, lawyers, insurance, etc. I was told to keep a journal, so I am. If you don't want to read, don't. If you want to follow along, that's great and thanks for being around.

Last Two Days

No, I didn't forget about you, blog. Yesterday was Wednesday, which meant choir, which meant not really home. However, I should have written down things that happened yesterday because now I can't really remember, except there was pain. I had run out of painkillers and due to weather related issues, I couldn't pick up my refills until today. So, yeah, more pain than I would have liked to have dealt with.

Today was day two of no pills (but I took my evening one so hopefully the pain will lessen soon) and the pain was not letting up. Going out shopping didn't help. I got a glimpse of myself in the Walmart bathroom before leaving, all hunched over like a little old lady. I wish I could have taken a picture but there were other people in there and they'd probably think I was just taking a bathroom selfie.

Having back spasms at Walmart wasn't fun. I'd just have to stop in the middle of the aisle and just let it do what it was going to do. One felt like this pulsating, tingles radiating from the center of my back. It was not fun at all.

I'm currently sitting in my chair with the magic bag on my back and I can feel the muscles relax a bit, which is good. They definitely give a sort of pleasurable pain...or painful pleasure. Either way it's written, it's feeling better.

I NEED therapy. If the last two days have proven anything, it's that I'm not getting better and my painkillers are only dulling the pain enough so that I can function in daily life. Getting off the bus yesterday, I would have given anything for a massage. But the lawyers have gotten no further with the insurance people and now that it's the week before Christmas, so I probably won't hear from them until the new year.

In the meantime, I just have to keep going through, day to day, hoping I don't fall down on the ice, trying not to hurt anymore than I am and just trying to make it through.

Wish me luck.

EDIT: I forgot my positive today. Got more shopping done (but not all of it), got my Christmas tree (but it's not up). We had hash for lunch at work! That was positive because it was so good. If you don't know, hash is the leftover veggies from a cooked dinner (usually turkey) fried up with some turkey, too. It was yummy!