I woke up yesterday morning and got out of bed feeling a little stiff. No big deal. I'm 64, and sometimes getting out of bed feels stiff. It usually works itself out in a few minutes. Not this time. As the morning progressed, my lower back started to seize up very painfully, to the point where I could barely walk and even sitting still hurt. We had to leave the house at 8:50 to go to our doctor appointments, so I made Mark drive the five miles. I could barely get in or out of the car.
At least I got to see the doctor on that very painful day. She wrote a prescription for a mild muscle relaxant, which Mark picked up for me later in the day. She also gave me an open-ended prescription to go get a lower back X-ray. She said if I wasn't better today that I should go get the X-ray.
The pills are just one tablet twice a day, with or without food (but make that consistent at every dose), and only 2 mg. I googled the drug, and that's a super small dose. As expected it makes you a bit out of it. I was okay with that because I just sat on the heating pad all day. Before I went to the doctor I took 800 mg of ibuprofen, but I didn't take any more of it because I wasn't sure it would go with the muscle relaxant. Nothing I read said they couldn't go together, so I might do both today.
Meanwhile, I am up this morning and still in pain. I want to say it's slightly better, but if I walk too much it gets worse. If I sit or lay on my back and stay still, it's much better. I really believe it's just a muscle spasm, but maybe I'll go get an x-ray later today anyway. If not today, I'll go tomorrow if I don't see improvement. I feel so strongly that it's a muscle spasm that I really don't have a big desire for the x-ray. I just don't believe it will show anything.
Last night began the holiday of Succoth. Mark built the succah on Tuesday, so we ate dinner in it last night. We found that if we went right out after candle-lighting time, we could get done before it was dark. That was nice. He's out there right now eating breakfast in it, but I'm sitting here typing this blog in the kitchen. My back is starting to hurt pretty badly, so I think I'll stop temporarily to eat breakfast, take ibuprofen, and in an hour take the muscle relaxant. I'll be back before the muscle relaxant kicks in to finish up this blog.
I took a picture of Mark eating breakfast in the succah. It's from my view inside the house, so you can only see his feet at the bottom, but it's something. I made my breakfast and tried to do a few tidying up errands. Big mistake. The more I walked, the worse the back felt. I'm going to finish this blog, eat breakfast, take meds, and sit on the heating pad all day.
Mark is going to go to services by himself. He can also give a heads up to the family that has invited us to their house for dinner tonight in their succah. I still plan to go. I hope by resting up all day that I can do that.
The good news is that in all this back craziness the doctor didn't yell at me about my weight or sugar numbers. Maybe she felt sorry for me. My weight was the highest ever in their office since we moved to Florida, 268.3, which was also four pounds up from my home scale a few hours earlier. She said, "Well, you've been struggling with this weight all the time." Can't argue with that. It was 24 pounds up on her records from April 8. She also was unconcerned about the 106 because she liked my 5.7 AiC. She agreed with me 100% that these 20 pounds make all the difference. When I lose them, my sugars will be normal. So, I'm sticking to my diet now, AGAIN. LOL!
My BP was high, for me. It was 158/75. I'm usually low. Four months ago it was 108/55. We all chalked it up to the pain, but maybe it's the extra weight, too. I have no idea. Also she loved my cholesterol numbers, which were truly remarkable. And I got a FLU SHOT! YAY!
Mark also got a great check up. She loved all his numbers, and he got his flu shot.
OK, breakfast is done. Time to take some pills and move to the arm chair with the heating pad.
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