My kids were trying to be thoughtful.

The extra activity and pain from the MRI last night has made today miserable. Ironically, the MRI itself felt great - the scan caused a sensation of warmth to flow in the injured area, and it was frankly the most comfortable I have been since I was injured. That said, the process of getting undressed, then arranging myself on the MRI table, then getting off and re-dressed, was extremely painful and unpleasant.

Especially when the oh-so-helpful aide decided the best way to get me off the MRI table was to say "Ally-up!" in a cheerful voice and pull me into a straight sitting position by my arms. I think my scream was loud enough to wake the dead.

Since that little incident, I've been in more pain, and the pain pills just weren't cutting it. Around 11am, I decided to lay down for a couple hours. I took my pills first before laying down, with the thought that they would have fully kicked in by 1pm, and I could get up and be semi-productive while the kids read during quiet time.

My kids had other ideas. Really, they were trying to be thoughtful, I do understand that. They jointly decided to make their own lunch and let me sleep in. For seven and a half hours.

Did I mention the pain pills only last for five to six hours?

So by the time I finally woke up, my pain meds had already been worn off for about two hours, and I HURT. I barely managed to get up and hobble to the bathroom (with tears pouring down my face the entire time), and somehow made it to the computer chair before my back completely seized out.

I sat there for over an hour, sobbing and waiting for the pain meds to kick in. Nothing doing. I was still stuck in the same spot, unable to move more than an inch or two without crying out in pain. At this point my kids were freaking out because they feel responsible for me being in pain, and I'm trying to reassure them and muffle my cries because it's making them feel bad, and it's just a huge clusterf*ck.

Finally after ninety minutes of this, I call the pharmacy (thank goodness for 24 hour pharmacies), and explain the situation. I tell her what I've taken so far, and what I have on hand, and ask if there is anything I can take in addition to my pain pills to allow me to function at least partially normally.

She told me to take another Hydrocodone. I worried out loud that I was worried about possible addiction (I mean, it's a narcotic, after all!), but she pointed out that I haven't been taking as much as I could be anyway, so it should still be safe to do. So I took another pill, both reluctantly and hopefully. And you know what? It worked. I can move again. I haven't tried to get out of my chair yet (I'm waiting for a full hour to go by before I try), but I can lean forward and backward and to each side, and I can shift in the chair.

I HATE THIS. I hate being in pain. I'm kicking myself (metaphorically speaking) for not losing weight earlier in my life. This pain would be a lot less if I weighed less. I remember reading a story a year or so ago of a woman who had lost weight, and then a couple months after reaching her goal, she was in a horrible car accident. She ended up wedged in the twisted metal wreak of her vehicle, in a small area that was claustrophobic tiny.

Her doctor later looked at the pictures and told her "If you had been in that accident when you were heavier, you would have died."

So now I have to face the reality - if I had lost the weight before this, would I even be injured? Would my injury be as severe? Is it too late for me? Am I permanently disabled? Is it too late to lose weight? If not, how can I lose weight when half my body is incapacitated?

More than the pain, the uncertainty is killing me.

If you are out there and trying to lose weight, quit procrastinating. Start NOW. You never know what the future might bring. You could hurt your back tomorrow. You could be in a car accident. You could fall and not be able to get up. Don't give up. Don't be complacent.

I'm not giving up. I'm going to continue working on losing weight. Sure, walking is no longer an option until I figure out what exactly is wrong, and what to do to fix it. It might be surgery. It might me more pain meds. I don't know. I might have to be in a wheelchair for a while.

I actually look forward to being in a wheelchair. I can still go for "walks", just using my arms rather than my legs. My shoulders rather than my hips. I'm not giving up.

Not your typical Thursday

Woke up today in more pain than any other day this week (except Monday - no ambulance for me today). Took an hour to get to a standing position, and I couldn't wait for the kids to leave for school so I could get in a boiling hot shower and work off some of the stiffness.

This was my first day getting dressed without help. It took seven minutes to get my underwear and pants on, and about twenty minutes to get socks and shoes on, but I did it! I started to do a happy dance out of habit, but quickly realized that was a VERY BAD IDEA.

I knew it was going to be a busy day - all three of the children had dental appointments, and I had managed to get a doctor's appointment for myself at the same time. So Sean came home from work, and we went to pick up the younger boys.

The first person I saw in the school was the vice principal. "Oh, Mrs. Betts! I'm glad to see you - we need to talk." That's never a good thing. Turns out James had decided to sumersault down the aisles of the school bus this morning. It took me a few minutes to digest this information. Seriously? What the heck was he thinking? And when asked, he just shrugged and said "I was bored."

~groan~ He's suspended from the bus for 24 hours. This means Sean will have to drive him to and from school tomorrow, as I obviously am in no condition to walk him there.

At the dentist, we discovered the two younger children have multiple small cavities. When confronted, the they admitted they have been playing in the bathroom at night rather than brushing their teeth. One of Jacob's teeth has to be pulled, and that is scheduled for Thursday next week. I'm hoping that the experience will drive the dental care lesson home, and I hope he expresses just how very PAINFUL and ANNOYING it is to his brother, so it teaches him a lesson too. In the meantime, I am going to have to supervise their nightly brushing.

Jonathan's was a little better. He only has two small cavities that can be easily dealt with. However, he has a fragment of a baby tooth that is stubbornly hanging in there, so that will have to be extracted at the end of the month. He's a little nervous about that, but I suspect it will go fine.

After the kids saw the dentist, I went to see the doctor. I got lucky this time - the doctor I got took me seriously, didn't treat me like I was an idiot, and seemed to genuinely care about my health and well-being. She expressed amazement at how little of the pain pills I've been using, which went a long way towards convincing her I was seriously in pain as opposed to a drug-user who was just trying to get narcotics. She gave me a referral for an MRI and I scheduled it for tomorrow night.

She thinks I have a herniated disc. Fun. I'll know for sure after the MRI.

If I do have a herniated disc, this means a couple of things. First of all, long walks are going to be off the table for a while. Second, the expanded garden I was planning this year is not an option. I'm going to have to change my plans to allow for container gardening rather than in-the-ground gardening. It's a blow, but I'll work around it. Last but not least, it means surgery to fix the issue, and possibly being wheelchair bound for several weeks.

When I know more, I'll let everyone know. In the meantime, I'm just waiting for the MRI.

Worst Monday Morning EVER

Last night I did some roughhousing with Sean, nothing unusual or weird about it. Hip felt a little sore as I went to sleep, no big deal (my hips are deformed and thus always sore anyway). Didn't have any trouble getting comfortable and falling asleep.

Around 3 am I woke to use the bathroom. Noticed an increase in soreness as I sat up, but again, no big deal. I usually stiffen up at night and need to limber up anyway.

But then I tried to stand up.

And I realized something was very very wrong.

The pain hit out of nowhere, flashing across my left hip and lower back like flame on gasoline. The shock of it made me cry out and fall back to the bed, gasping. At first I thought this was just a more severe stiffness - maybe a cold front was moving in? But as I continued to try to get out of bed, it became clear that I was injured.

Walking the ten feet from the bed to the bathroom took twenty minutes. Getting back into bed was even harder. After struggling for over an hour to get comfortable, I finally fell into a light doze, punctuated by flashes of pain.

The alarm went off at 6 am - and by then, I couldn't even get out of bed. I tried to limber up, stretching as much against the pain as I dared. At one point I managed to swing my legs off the bed (while still in a lying position), and the pain was so bad at that point, darkness was starting to creep up in the edges of my vision. After an hour of struggling to even sit up, Sean called 911, and I was taken out of my bed on a backboard.

The ER didn't run a single test for my back or hips. They simply pumped me full of pain medication until I was able to sit up on my own and shuffle three feet to a wheelchair. I was told to take the pain medication for the next few days, and if there is still no improvement over my condition, to call my regular doctor and have some tests run then.

Best case scenario? I either sprained, strained, or pulled a muscle in my lower back/hips. Worst case scenario? A compression fracture, a slipped disk, or something equally nasty. I won't know for sure until it has time to heal.

There is never a good time to be injured, but this time period hit particularly hard. I have signed up for a 100 Mile March challenge this month, and thanks to the flu I had last week, plus this injury, I haven't been able to walk a single mile. I was looking forward to spring cleaning. I've really been getting more on top of housework, and now I fear it's all going to slid downhill while I am recovering.

So if you don't see me online much in the next couple weeks, it's because I am in too much pain to sit on our beat-up office chair to type. I'll try to regularly update, but I can't make any promises.

I just hope it's nothing serious.

Book Review - "Feed" by Mira Grant

Every so often I come across a series, or a new author, that really gets me going - the kind of story that is so good I sit up 'til the early hours of the morning because I just can't put it down. The kind of book that is so good, I dream about the plot in my sleep. The kind that leaves me crying when a tragedy happens to a character I empathized with.

Last week I read a book that did all three. "Feed" gripped me in the second chapter and refused to let go until it had rung every drop of adrenaline and emotion from my body, leaving me as limp and exhausted as a bride on her wedding night - and all that without a single mention of sexual behavior or activities. Unusual, to say the least.

One of the things that really struck me was how the author handled the news organization. In the last two decades, our society has seen a huge changed in how the news is delivered. Newspapers used to be the number one source of news, but now most young people have never even read a newspaper. Television news used to be considered reliable, with hard-hitting and ethical reporters braving war zones to inform the people. But nowadays, major media tends to be biased, and opinions are given more weight than facts.

In Mira Grant's world, the same thing happened. And when the zombie outbreak occurred, those news organizations were quick to announce that there was nothing to fear. "It's just a new type of flu, very localized and quick to recover from." The truth was released by a new form of media - bloggers. They had no organization breathing down their backs and demanding that they conform their reports to the accepted story, and it was their posts that brought the walking dead to light. This power continued past "The Rising".

We live in a world where internet protests shut down SOPA, and the overthrow of violent regimes are being organized on Facebook and Twitter. This makes Mira Grant's world even more believable. And I love how she organized the different bloggers - those who report straight facts are Newsies. Then you have the Stewarts, who report opinion informed by fact. And those who go out and harass danger to give the viewers a little thrill? Irwins. I have to admit that made me crack up.

The focus of the book is less on the zombies (though they do make several appearances), and more on the sociological changes brought about by the apocalypse. Even the simplest activities that were taken for granted are no longer available. For example, sending your children out to play on a warm day used to be the norm. Now, it's considered child abuse. Owning a family dog is suddenly fraught with danger. Even a shower is no longer a simple thing.

Midway through this book, the wind moaned around my house and sent branches tapping against my window. I nearly jumped out of my skin! If you only pick up one new book this month, make it "Feed" - and perhaps follow it up with the second book in the series, "Deadline". The third book is due out this summer.

(I should also mention that the author has published several books under a different name, Seanan McGuire. I haven't read those yet, but they are on my kindle and waiting for me.)

Peaceful

This morning we woke up to that eerie utter stillness that says snow fell during the night. I looked outside and saw that our neighborhood had been blessed with about five inches of very heavy snow. The pine trees in our backyard are bent over from the weight of the flakes, and in the early dawn light, the entire world glistened in pure innocence.

The boys were up at 6am, asking if they could read until breakfast. I sadly had to tell them no, not yet - snow means work. The driveway had to be shoveled so Sean could leave for work, and Jonathan jumped on that chore. Sean's breakfast, lunch, and dinner also needed to be packed (he works 24 hour shifts), and James and Jacob helped with bagging chips and washing fruit. We managed to have everything ready in plenty of time for Sean to leave early, which seemed smart, since we don't know the road conditions.

School is delayed two hours, and I'm grateful. Normally, right now, I would be rushing around making sure the boys are ready to leave ("Jacob, you need to wear layers for warmth" followed by "Um, Jacob, by layers I didn't mean to wear eight tee-shirts. Just one tee-shirt and a sweater is enough!"). But thanks to the late start, I am able to type this while oatmeal simmers on the stove, and the boys are mashing bananas to make bread. We'll all be able to take some time to cuddle on the couch with our books and read together. And our morning won't be rushed at all.

I wish every day was a late-start day.

December is FINALLY over....

When I was twelve, I had a very traumatic and life-scarring event happen on the night of New Year's Eve, and since then, I've really struggled around this time of year. For the past couple of years, I've handled things better, and so I had assumed this year would be even easier for me.

I was wrong. For some reason, things really hit me hard this past month, and I completely lost track of a lot of goals, not to mention losing control of my daily routine. I binge ate - A LOT - and lazed around in an aura of depression. I tried to stay upbeat, but I had to fake it and most days, it just didn't seem worth the effort.

Perhaps the reason it hit me so hard this year is because I thought it was going to be easier, so I didn't prepare myself for the hardships the way I usually do. That was a mistake. Another reason it might have been so hard is that we are struggling financially, and the stress of that on top of the normal stress was overwhelming.

However! December is OVER, the new year has started, and that horrid date is behind me. I have a whole 362 days until that anniversary comes around, and this time I'm going to prepare myself in every way possible, up to and including anti-depressants if needed.

Thanks to all who emailed or called during this time period - knowing you guys cared meant the world to me, and helped me more than I can say. Things are getting back on track!

Teaching Trouble a new trick

Every weekday, my oldest son comes home from school and takes Trouble for a jog. Trouble LOVES this. He seems to know exactly what time Jon is due home from school, and will watch eagerly from the window for the first sign of "his boy" coming home.

Trouble with Pepper, the foster kitty. Most recent picture I have.

Recently, Jon discovered that his high school has a chess club that meets every Wednesday after school. I gave him permission to go as long as his grades stay consistent. Of course, no one thought about explaining this to Trouble.

He was waiting at the window, like always, watching eagerly for Jon to come into view. Every time a kid would walk past the house, Trouble's tail would wag faster and faster...only to stop suddenly when he realized it wasn't "his" kid. Half an hour later, Trouble had had enough. He crawled onto my bed, buried his head under the blankets, and started crying. Pitiful whimpers and plaintive wails came from my quivering bedspread as the poor puppy gave voice to his sorrow.

It was clear I had to distract the poor little guy, so I pulled out a handful of treats and decided to teach him a new trick. Twenty minutes later, Trouble was happily playing dead every time I pointed at him and said "Bang!".

I praised him for being a good puppy and rewarded him with a stuffed animal to gnaw on, then went to browse the net. About ten minutes later, I heard a light whimper by my elbow. "What's wrong, baby?" I asked, looking over at him. Trouble wagged his tail and dramatically collapsed, looking at me hopefully. When I didn't get the hint, he glanced at the treat bowl, then back at me, and wagged his tail a little bit more. I tried very hard to hide my laughter as I praised him, then turned back to the computer.

Two minutes later, he wiggled into my vision, and when I glanced his way, he collapsed again.

This has been going on for half an hour now. I've successfully taught him to play dead...now how do I teach him to stop?

UPDATE: Trouble has been playing dead at a glance for over an hour now. Sean arrived home from running errands and I excitedly went to show him the new trick. I pointed at Trouble and said "Bang!". Trouble just cocked his head to the side and looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"Yeah, Trish, great job training the dog." chortled Sean as he walked out of the room. And of course, the moment Sean walked out? Trouble fell flat on his side and played dead.

The dog is an unrepentant brat.