Missing In Action

A few of you may have noticed that I haven't blogged very much in the last few days. I guess you could say I've kind of been missing in action. Probably a more accurate description would be M.A.A.--missing any action. For the last 5 days I've spent the majority of my time laying in bed with the laptop. I've had a lot of time of my hands, but for a number of reasons I couldn't bring myself to write about the physically and emotionally painful reason I've been laying here. Tomorrow I'm going to try heading back to the real world, so I supposed it's time I shared the story of what has sidelined me the last several days. It's a long story, so those of you in for the long haul might want to go get some caffeine at this point! :)

As most of you know, for the last couple of years I've been fighting a bulging disc in my lower back, which has caused me nerve pain in my back, rear, legs and feet (commonly referred to as sciatica), primarily when sitting. This is rather unfortunate since my job involves a lot of time in a chair. From time to time I've blogged about the condition, mostly to chronicle the ridiculous number of treatment options I've attempted trying to get some relief from the pain. For those of you keeping score at home, the list includes traditional chiropractic, ice packs, months of complete inactivity, a heel lift, nerve stimulation, an inversion table, physical therapy, large quantities of ibuprofen, massage therapy, homeopathic muscle relaxers, muscle stimulation, traction therapy, heating pads, acupuncture, auricular therapy, two different homeopathic anti-inflammatories, and Active Release Technique from a different chiropractor along with core strengthening and stretching. While this last treatment did improve my muscle spasms and range of motion, there was no noticeable improvement in the nerve pain. Apparently the bulging disc has been pushing on those nerves for so long the inflammation just wouldn't go away, so my chiropractor recommended that I get an epidural steroid injection, which is what my regular doctor recommended over six months ago. At the end of June, I finally took that step and scheduled the epidural for July 12, which was the soonest the anesthesiologist could get me in.

So here's where this week's story begins. Ironically, the morning of July 4, just over a week before my scheduled epidural, I had just walked the dogs and was doing my regular exercises on our Weider CrossBow in the basement. After doing some inner/outer thigh work, I sat down on the bench in the "butterfly stretch" like I would on any other day. I heard no strange popping noises and felt no unusual pain, but when I went to stand up I realized there was a big problem. I couldn't stand or take a step without feeling like someone was stabbing me in the left side of my lower back. Not only was it terribly painful, but it was terribly scary as well. I'd never felt pain like it before and was scared to move for fear of feeling it again.

I spent much of the day laying down with an icepack or my TENS unit (nerve stimulator). Walking was extremely painful, so it was definitely slow going when I tried to go anywhere! Thursday morning, I joined Chad for Grandma's return trip to Salina, with the hope that a chiropractic adjustment from Chad's dad would improve the problem. Unfortunately, the problem seemed to be a little bigger than one adjustment could fix, and upon our arrival home I wasn't really feeling any better. Chad called my doctor, who prescribed Lortab for the pain (which is acetaminophen with Hydrocodone) as well as a muscle relaxer, to help the spasms that are happening in response to the pain. Up to this point I'd been very reluctant to try narcotics for my back problem, but Thursday night I was so thankful for the prescription I cried tears of joy after two days of crying tears of sorrow!

On Friday morning Chad took me to see my doctor, and she also prescribed Prednisone to try and combat some of the inflammation that is causing the pain. The Prednisone was supposed to make me hyper and irritable, but aside from not sleeping much, I don't think the side effects have been bad at all. The Lortab has definitely eased my discomfort, but I can't take the full dosage because it makes me sick to my stomach and really lightheaded. That's probably a good thing from the standpoint of avoiding dependence issues!

So the doctor's thought is that either the disc which was already bulging just bulged out farther or ruptured altogether, but it doesn't really matter which is the case, because really the treatment is the same for both: lots of rest, ice, Prednisone, and ultimately the epidural, which will shoot cortisone directly into my spine. I'm doing lots of laying around, alternating ice packs and heating pads, and things have improved immensely since Wednesday. Those first couple of days were very depressing and felt very hopeless, but today I'm starting to feel like someday I'll be back to normal again!

Both my chiropractor and my doctor had high hopes that the epidural would help my pain prior to this episode, because at that time what was causing me the most pain was the nerves going down my rear and legs while I was sitting. The epidural was supposed to calm that nerve inflammation. Now, the bulk of my pain is to the left of the disc on the way to my hip, which might be either from a severe bulge, or in the case of a ruptured disc, from a piece of the disc actually sitting on that nerve. Sometimes the disc will rupture and just leak out the gelatinous material inside, which pushes on the nerves for a while but then dissipates. Sometimes when it ruptures there is a piece of the harder outside of the disc that lands on a nerve. If the epidural doesn't help at all, then it's likely that this is what has happened, but they will do another MRI in that case to be sure. If that is the problem, there really isn't any other option except surgery, since they obviously have to get that piece of the disc off the nerve. Anyway, we won't really know until about a week after the epidural if it actually works or not, which is a real bummer because I don't want to have to wait that long!

So I guess that's the whole scoop. Each day there is definite improvement, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll be able to go back to work at least part of the day. Honestly, I'm not worried as much about work as about the other activities in my future that are looking questionable at this point. I'm already missing two softball games today and one tomorrow, and while there's only one more game I'll miss this season, I honestly don't know if it's feasible for me to play in the fall season that starts in early August. I just can't really tell if the problem is actually improving or just getting covered up by all the medication. While I'm also saddened that I won't be able to jump around and dance at Wednesday's Old 97s concert (although I still anticipate going), my biggest concern is the Breast Cancer 3-Day. While I will obviously do everything in my power to participate, I'm slightly nervous about starting training in a couple of weeks. Thankfully, walking is a very low impact activity, but walking over 450 miles in 16 weeks will obviously take it's toll. Your prayers for a quick recovery are definitely appreciated!