The Volunteer Appreciation Dinner for Shepherds of Good Hope was a lot of fun. I’d show you pictures, but I lost my camera. I think I left it either at the dinner or at the physiotherapist’s office the next morning. 
I’ve been seeing the physiotherapist for a few weeks now because I threw my back out in February and it never really got better. I found myself stuck in a holding pattern. I could function for the most part, but I couldn’t bend or lift anything.
Yesterday afternoon, after my physio appointment, I sneezed myself into a whole new reality. It felt like my back had exploded into a million jagged pieces of pain.
My doctor saw me right away and prescribed three things: an anti-inflammatory, a muscle relaxant, and a painkiller.
This morning I experienced severe pain in one leg when I tried to get out of bed. It took me a couple of minutes to realize it was just muscle cramps, but oh my god, they were intense muscle cramps! Screaming-out-loud muscle cramps! Biting-my-own-arm muscle cramps! If-I-had-an-axe-I’d-hack-off-my-leg muscle cramps!
Duncan watched with interest as I writhed around the bed in agony.
“Duncan,” I cried between clenched teeth, “Nine-one-one! Hurry!”
He yawned and stretched and snuggled back up against me and purred in my ear.
Eventually I managed to get out of bed and drag myself to the bottle of painkillers.
This painkiller, Percocet, is pretty damned good. I can still feel where the pain is, but it’s more of an abstract concept than a problem now. I like it. A lot.
Blogging might be a little slow around here for the next couple of days though. For one thing, I’m pretty high, and for another thing I’m not supposed to sit down for a few days.
Percocet good.
Pain Bad.
Hope you recover soon.
Thanks Bandobras. And thank you for you encouragement on the grumbly day post too. It helped.
Sounds a lot like the pain I have (which is from a herniated disc… probably caused by a really bad sneeze) except I have tylenol 3s instead of percocet. Hope it feels better soon, mine has been pretty manageable, but at one point it was so bad i end up in the hospital… but that was okay too because they gave me morphine
Have you tried a chiropractor? 20 visits to the physiotherapists don’t do what one visit to my chiropractor does. Some say it’s the harsher treatment, but it keeps me off the pain killers, so I gladly trade.
Get well soon!
Nothing like the pain from muscle spasms. Ouch. Eat lots of bran for the pain killers.
And bananas for the potassium …
Percocets and morphine both make me feel worse than any pain could … so I hope I never have to resort to either!
I’ve had really good luck with massage therapy. If you can get yourself to an RMT, go to it. I recommend Metcalfe Massage. I’m not sure if lower back pain is similar to other chronic pain, but it’s worth a shot if you aren’t getting satisfaction from your other health care providers.
(Yes, I believe in the shotgun approach to medicine – at least when it comes to bringing specialists onto a problem)
Yay, Duncan! You did exactly right. Purring and snuggling are what Zoom needs.
[…] fraught with dangers beyond popping a blood vessel or two or the spread of disease. Just ask Zoom about The Sneeze That Changed Her Life that resulted in excrutating spinal pain and mobility […]