Pinched nerves and Precious moments

My girls came home on Sunday and we celebrated Christmas. We've been roller blading and Nintendo DSing like mad, lol. It's been a nice few days.



A few days before Christmas I started having neck pain. So on day four, the day after Christmas, I called a chiropractor who said he could see me that day. I was fairly miserable with the pain on Christmas day and didn't want to keep just enduring it. It wasn't like...the pain of giving birth, mind you...but it was gnawing and I was getting nothing done. (Not that I mind having an excuse to sit around, lol...but I had just a very few projects I was going to try to tackle during my break, and they didn't get done. I doubt they will at this rate. Any work I do in the days ahead will be in the form of lesson plans and laundry.)



Anyway I went to the chiro and found out I have a pinched nerve. I also let him check out my lower back because I've had pain in it for at least four years. I had therapy for it a couple summers ago and the PT told me it was muscle spasms in my... well, in my batootie. lol Yeah, that was some interesting therapy. ha ha



So the chiro took xrays of my neck and of my lower back. He took a profile of each and one straight on. He was very gabby and not "really" seeing patients that day, so he took his time. I stood there several minutes for the xrays. It wasn't like an xray tech that whisks you in and out and you're done. Shouldn't have been a problem, but...I THINK I was standing with my knees locked. There was one more xray to go and the thought went through my head, "Have I had my knees locked?" and I started moving my legs immediately. I guess I was a little late. I headed for a chair and made it, yay! But I nearly passed out. Tingling all over, then HOT HOT HOT, man was it HOT in there, and then came the nausea. It was quite the adventure. Then a couple minutes later I was fine and we went on with things.



He went over the xrays with me. My lower back looked perfect, he said, from both angles...which basically means that the pain IS muscular...but he can do some to help with that, so I'm happy girl. Then he showed me the xrays of my neck. Of course from the back or front, your cervical spine should be straight. Mine veers to the right for now because it's protecting that little pinched nerve in my neck. Then he showed me the profile xray. From the profile, your cervical spine should make a curved line. Mine makes a straight line. It's angled: I'm not like a pole, lol, but it's a straight line. What does this mean? It means that instead of the 20 lbs of my big ol' head resting on the cartilige...it is putting that weight on the discs. Not a good thing. And my 5th and 6th vertebra have very very very little space remaining between them. I guess they're the ones putting the pinch on my nerve. Those vertebra show some "wear and tear." Instead of a nice pointy corner on them as there should be, it is rounded off a bit. He showed me on this lovely poster that my neck is in the first stage of degeneration (or was it deterioration?). The good news is that it can be reversed...not quite back to normal but it can be reversed. If it had advanced to the next stage I'd have been out of luck as far as trying to reverse things. Bones would have started fusing and lovely things like that. But it's going to be a process. Not a terribly long one, but we're not talking a one visit fix.



Tomorrow I go for my third visit. I'm nearly counting down the hours. A visit mean RELIEF. How do *I* spell relief? Not ROLAIDS, but CHIROPRACTOR. It's longer, but it feels better.



Now for the precious moment I mentioned. When I typed it I thought of the Precious Moments figurines. I love those little things. I started collecting them as a teen, but I made myself promise myself not to buy them for myself. Yeah, my collection's pretty small, lol. That's okay.


But that's not the kind of precious moments I was referring to. I meant the ones when I'm tucking my kids in at night. Like when I tuck in Alli, I sit on the edge of her bed and we talk a couple minutes. Then we pray together and when it's time for me to get up and leave her room, I think she asks for a hug and a kiss somewhere around 50 times. Sometimes she comes right out and asks for 100 hugs and kisses. Makes a mommy feel very very very loved.

Then I go into Meg's room. Megan always wants to be last when getting tucked in, because she always wants me to lay down beside her and stay with her a few minutes. So I lay down by her and she cuddles up close and I pray aloud and then she usually prays silently while I just lay still and hold her close. Then when she's done she asks me to stay a couple more minutes. Sometimes, though, she is so incredibly chatty and despite my shushing she keeps talking. Like tonight. So I finally said, "I'm leaving in two minutes!" (We'd already prayed, etc.) She kept talking so I said, "59..........58........57........56...." She told me not to do that. Her last couple minutes she always tries to fall asleep before I leave. Doesn't work, but she can at least be totally relaxed. So she shushed me on that. So I stopped, counting in my head, and ok...mischievously said, "50!" and paused a moment before saying "40!" She shushed me. So I really stopped then. But I could tell she was just waiting for me to do it again. Suddenly she said, "I know what you're going to say: ...... 30!" I didn't say a word. A couple more moments passed and she said, "Are you using Mississippi's???" She sounded hopeful. Throw in some Mississippi's and you get a couple more seconds to the minute. I loved it: "Are you using Mississippi's?"

Being a mom is so cool. Tiring, but cool.