Goodness. I certainly have felt like an old person the past two days and it looks like I’ll be feeling the same today. Over the weekend, my lower back was kinda tweaking and I didn’t really think anything of it. My whole body has been sore the past week because I started working out regularly again and doing all the weight machines out little gym has. I just figured I was sore because I’d been working muscles that have been being mostly lazy for the past three months.
Well, Monday morning I woke up and my lower back was super stiff, but I decided to work out anyways. I did my 20 minutes on the elliptical and all of my weights. Last week, when I told him I’d done an entire workout without any pain (i’ve been getting lower abdominal cramps partway through working out ever since we got here), Troy commented that my body was getting used to the weight and that I needed to up the resistance. Of course, he was just teasing me and pretending I was talking about my muscles, but I started thinking about it and realized I’d been doing the same resistance on a lot of the machines since well before I left Oklahoma. So, Monday I decided to up my weights. Yeah, good one. Go me. lol.
After I got done working out on Monday, my back hurt pretty bad and I felt like I couldn’t move. When I lay down on the floor to do my physical therapy exercises, I couldn’t even do those. It hurt too much to move. I felt like such a nerd because it took me 20 minutes just to get up off the floor. I had to lay on my back for a while, until it stopped hurting so much, then roll to my side, wait until it stopped hurting, roll on my stomach, wait a bit, get on my hands and knees and then use the furniture until I could stand up. It was quite an experience.
Most of Monday was spent resting. I still had to wash Troy’s under clothing because he said he was just about out on Saturday and also wash the dishes because we only have enough dishes to skip washing them one day and I hadn’t washed the dishes on Sunday. So, I did those two things and spent the rest of the day on the couch. I talked on the phone with my dad for a while and that was a good excuse to sit and do nothing. It was a nice day and I didn’t want to waste it, so early in the afternoon, after my back had been resting for a few hours and was feeling a bit better, I dragged myself downstairs to the pool. I really enjoy laying next to the pool and listening to books, so I did that for an hour. A hot shower later, I was back on the couch.
I always feel bad when I don’t make dinner for Troy, so I decided to make him a chicken casserole. It was soooooooooooooooooooooooo good! I’m definitely making it again, with some tweaks, and then posting the recipe on here. Anyways, it took me a long time to make it because my back started hurting really bad again after I’d been standing for more than a few minutes. Troy got home while I was still making the food and he helped me shred the chicken and mix it all up.
When Troy first got home, he asked me how I was and I told him about my back. He gave me a big hug and told me I sounded so sad and like I was going to cry. I told him I was really hurting and that’s when he started helping me with dinner.
After the food got stuck in the oven, we both lay down to take a short nap. When my alarm went off to go get the food, I couldn’t get off the bed. Troy went to get the food out of the oven while I worked myself off the bed. I tried to help get the table set, but just picking up the dishes hurt really bad. I ended up sitting at the table and bawling because I was in so much pain. Poor Troy. He didn’t know what to do. He offered me pain pills, but I didn’t take them because I’d already taken a bunch of ibuprofen. I was really kicking myself for forgetting my vicodin. I’d received a bottle from my doctor after a car accident in 2008 and I still have most of the bottle left. I think I still have 24 or 25 of them because I only take a half a pill on rare occasions. I don’t like taking strong medication.
So, for the rest of Monday night, Troy took care of me. He set the table, served dinner, cleaned up the table, put the food in the fridge and let me just spend the evening on the couch. It was nice. The only sad thing is that I told him I was really wanting ice cream, but he didn’t want to go to the store to get some. lol. I can’t really blame him. After he cleaned up dinner he went and worked out, so he was pretty tired, too. Then two of his coworkers came over so he could take a picture of one of them because she needed to send a head shot to the project manager of the new project she is being transferred to. I felt so dumb, just laying on the couch, while they were at the house, but I just couldn’t manage to do much more than that. Before and after his coworkers came over, Troy laid down next to me on the couch and held me. It was all he could do and it was nice to know he cared enough to do it.
Tuesday, I felt a bit better. After I made Troy breakfast, I lay down on the couch with some pillows under my lower back and crashed out for a few hours. I hadn’t meant to sleep that long, but I hadn’t really slept very well the night before. When I woke up, my back felt a lot better. I think the support of the pillows really helped relax the muscles. I was able to spend most of Tuesday in less pain than Monday, but I still spent most of the day laying on the couch. I got up periodically to tidy things around the house, but I didn’t want to over do it and hurt myself again, so I just relaxed most of the day.
Today, I decided I would try working out again. I did well on the elliptical, but had to stop after doing one weight machine. When I tried to stand up after doing bicep curls, my lower back started pinching and I decided I needed to stop. I tried to do some physical therapy stretches, but my mobility is still fairly limited.
One of my stretches involves pulling each knee to my chest and normally I can touch each knee to my chest, but today I could only manage to get my knee to above my hips before it started hurting. I got through all 20 of my reps and by the time I was done, I could get my knees to be above my stomach.
So, today I am going to take it easy again. There’s not a whole lot I need to do around the house, just vacuuming. I’m going to work on my school work for a few hours and then start vacuuming a little at a time. It may take me all day to do it, but I need to get it done. Troy hasn’t complained about the cat hair at all, but it’s been almost a week since I last vacuumed and I know it bothers his asthma and allergies if I don’t vacuum every few days. So, I need to do it. I’d planned on doing it Monday, but things just didn’t work out that way. Oh well. Wish me luck that I can finish it all today.
