I'm back!

Hey y'all. Thanks for still reading! I would like to apologize for my absence. My computer was having some issues and had to go to Texas to have them sorted out and in the meantime, I didn't really do much online at all. Except check my email. And that was it.

But I'm back now and realizing how much I missed writing! I've felt isolated lately because of my injured back (yes, two months later, it is still injured!) which causes lots of pain but writing on my blog is one thing I can stand to do since I don't have to smile and pretend I'm fine around other people.

So I guess I'll talk about my back first (I have a long list of things to write about over the next couple of days). I have a new found respect for anyone who is able to diagnose back problems at all. They are having a little trouble with mine. I don't remember if I wrote about the initial injury or not so I'll just recap. Back in August when I was working on The Merry Widow, I picked up one of our cafe tables with a cast iron base and I apparently picked it up wrong because I started experiencing a lot of back pain. Then the next weekend my Mom was here and we were in a great used bookstore and I just kinda fell on my butt, causing more pain. Well, it took my doctor awhile to figure out just how much pain I was in (it's really a hard thing to guage by anything other than trial and error with drugs) and by that time I had compensated so much for the injury that I pretty much hurt all over my back. I started physical therapy and we were hoping that would fix the problem BUT it apparently wasn't enough.

In the last month or so I have been to the Evanston hospital numerous times. They have done x-rays of my upper and lower back (because the pain was all over to the extent we had no clue what might be the problem and where), which came back normal. Then there was more waiting and physical therapy, and when that still wasn't cutting it, I had an MRI. MRIs are not fun. They are painful. I wasn't bothered by the small enclosed space. It was the block of wood (or what felt like a block of wood) that they put under my neck that was hell, adding to the fact I was in pain anyways. They told me over the phone that the MRI came back fine. Then when I went to my doctor for a follow-up, he told me they actually had found a lesion near my spine and needed to do a bone scan in order to rule out more serious problems such as...cancer.

I went a week and a half until the bone scan and it was horrible. The scan came back fine (my doctor even called me the same day!) but that week, which included going home for a wedding, was emotionally and physically rough. The lesion is probably just a cluster of blood vessels or something harmless like that but who knows why it is there. Maybe this "injury" I had back in August just set off a chain of events to lead me to find this lesion. I don't know. But at least it's not cancer! I can thank God for that.

So that brings the "injury report" up to date. I'm in limbo again with no new tests ordered and still on lots and lots of pain meds and muscle relaxers. I'm still doing physical therapy which has been wonderful because my therapist works with me and my pain and I am getting stronger. However, I don't know if it's going to "fix" me...I'm going to see a rehabilitation back specialist sometime soon so maybe that will illuminate things some.

Well, that is all for tonight's entry. I needed to write about my back, which seems like an unusual and personal topic but it is important to me. I've been living with the pain and discomfort for almost two months and therefore it has become part of who I am this fall and how I look at the world. I even used my back trouble as an example in my Feminism and Fertility class about how physical pain greatly affects the emotions and the way a person lives (I think it was in a discussion of infertility and disabilities). I'm pretty open with people when they ask about my back because it has made me a different person. I'm trying not to complain to much and most of the time I make fun of myself in order to make the situation less depressing. I've had wonderful support from all of my family, friends, coworkers, bosses, professors, etc and I thank you all for that.

My back is telling me to go do my therapy exercises and they take a load off with a nice ice pack so I close this blog entry for tonight. On Monday I'm going to start researching new ways to help my back, perhaps chiropractics or acupuncture. And who knows, maybe it just needs time.