About a week ago, I was telling someone my current situation and they said, “Wow, you’ve had quite the crappy year!” It kind of stunned me because when I think of this past year, I think that we got to go skiing for a week, my daughter and I went to Charleston, S.C., we had wonderful trips to FL for Spring Break and summer vacation, Ryder got accepted to TCU and became a Kappa there, we had a great trip to St. Louis, Chuck and I celebrated 20 years of marriage, etc. I could seriously go on and on with the good things in our life. What my friend was referring to, however, was my knee injury I sustained in Colorado on our ski trip, my mother’s house fire & my latest problem — I was recently diagnosed with SI (sacroiliac) Joint Syndrome. Here’s the scoop if you want to read up on it. But this is what’s been going on with me for, well, a month this past week.
During the process of moving Ryder into her dorm at Texas Christian, I somehow injured, or re-injured, my back. I am lucky to have a wonderful orthopedic doctor who saw me right away (Dr. Kenneth Rosenzweig) and even luckier that his years of experience led him to diagnose me with SI joint problems immediately. It’s a condition that is often overlooked or misdiagnosed, sometimes for YEARS. I cannot imagine. It’s painful. Terribly. For me, sitting upright is just downright agonizing. Standing hurts too, but sometimes it’s a great alternative to sitting. My doctor did my first round of steroid injections two weeks ago and the pain block worked for a few days, which in the case of this disorder, tells us that the source of the pain IS indeed the SI joints. However, with this condition, the pain is not usually eradicated until after the second round of injections and sometimes the third. My doctor has only had to resort to surgery for this once in the last 30 years. We are on the right track. Unfortunately he says this is one of the more severe cases he has seen. Of course. I excel at everything 🙂
I have had to stop training temporarily, have cancelled things that were going to require me to ride in a car more than across town, have become what I feel like is a huge burden to Chuck, & have had to ask people for help, which is WAY outside my comfort zone. But it’s going to get better and thankfully one aspect of my job (photography, for those of you who don’t know me personally!) can be done flat on my back with my laptop. I’m not someone who just enjoys doing nothing so thankfully I can still do needlework.
Saturday, I decided to get out and run to Michael’s and Wal-Mart. Not a good idea. I came home and collapsed on the couch for the remainder of the day. Sunday was a bad day. I went to the ER for the second time since this began. The pain gets really bad, to the point that I’m nauseous. Electrical-like pains shoot down my legs and up my back sometimes, I have hot and cold sensations that are just freaky for lack of a better word. Sometimes the pain medicine affects every other part of my body EXCEPT the part of my back that is hurting. That’s always fun. Other times, like last night, it works so well I’m actually able to move around & accomplish things. Having been down for six weeks already in early 2013 when I tore my MCL skiing, the mental frustration with having my activity limited again is high. I have a giant list of things to do to our house and of course, they have been put on the back burner AGAIN.
So wish me luck with Thursday’s injections. Pray I plug along until Chuck gets home on Thursday night. Did I mention he is out of town until then? Fun times. There are so many people dealing with much worse than this so I will get through. But I’m living for the day that I am able to work out, drive where I want and sit without agony!
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