worse than a c-section

At first,

I thought I'd just indulged a little too much on Easter.

But when my knee was still hurting in mid April

and I hadn't had any wheat or sweets in several days

and my knee was still being a nuisance, 

I started thinking maybe it wasn't diet-related.

By the beginning of May, it was no longer a nuisance, it was downright painful,

and we decided on Thursday, that I probably needed to go to the doctor.

But Friday was Josiah's birthday, plus Tyler was gone (learning to dive...) so I didn't want to go then.

Saturday, we'd be celebrating birthdays, so couldn't go then either,

so we decided I'd go to the walk-in clinic on Sunday.

Dr Alexander was there, so I asked for him.

(he's the one who did some adjustments on my back when my SI joint was hurting so bad)

He found that my hips were out of alignment, but he couldn't see anything else wrong.

He put things back in place, wrote me a prescription for painkillers and muscle relaxers 

and suggested giving it a week or so to see if it got better. 

It was actually worse for the next few days, but then, with lots of rest

(I was dealing with another (non-physical) painful situation and spent a good bit of time in the hammock

and out with my chickens)

it started getting a little better.

Then Sunny died, and things got busy, and I could no longer afford the luxury of lying around a portion of the day.

I had calculated that Dr Alexander would be at the clinic (he works a week on, a week off...)

and decided I really should go back before we left for the funeral.

Sitting is way worse than standing or walking, so I anticipated all the car time increasing my pain and was hoping to preempt that.

But when I drove by after finishing errands on Friday, the parking lot was full,

and I'd already been gone 2 hours longer than I'd intended to be,

and didn't feel like I should be away from the kids much longer,

so I just went home.

After the funeral, life didn't slow down and I never managed to find time to rest in the hammock

and my knee just continued to be a bother.

And as time went on, it became a bigger and bigger bother until

last Thursday

when I was writhing in pain driving the boys to TKD.

I couldn't move my foot from gas to brake without using my hand to help lift my knee.

I sent Tyler a text that I was heading to Pro-Med.

But once again, he couldn't find anything wrong with the knee from his examination.

He said my hips were a tiny bit off, which was to be expected with all my knee-favoring, but that didn't seem to be the trouble.

He did a little adjustment and said they'd make an appointment with an orthopedic Dr and give me some more medication.

I told him I'd only taken the pain medicine a couple of nights when the pain was really bad, 

but it didn't really do much pain relieving.

(taking narcotics during the day is out of the question ~ I have to be able to tend to my family...)

He wrote me a prescription for more meds, stronger this time.

I'm still in tremendous pain for a good portion of the day,

although some days, I have little moments here and there (that I am immensely grateful for!) where it doesn't hurt much.

Annoyingly, even with the help of Dr Google, I haven't been able to self-diagnose.

My appointment with Dr Bolyard isn't until the 18th

(originally it was scheduled for the 20th, and Tyler called and asked if I could get in any sooner, or get on a list to be called if there's a cancellation)

I could possibly get in a little sooner if I went with a different doctor, but I don't want to, as I feel like perhaps Lexi's broken arm was to introduce me to this Christian doctor who likes to let the body do what God designed it to do with as little intervention as possible. (maybe?)

Meanwhile,

I try to take it easy,

don't sit for longer than 8-12 minutes (unless I'm driving, of course),

let out involuntary moans and groans and ARGHs,

cry,

and apply heat and castor oil often (supposed to be good for joints. I'm not really feelin' it, but it can't hurt anything...)

In order to sleep at night

(I still wake up with pain several times, though)

I take a muscle relaxer, a higher dose of hydrocodone

and a fuzzy navel.

Tyler bought a bottle of peach schnapps tonight and told the guy at the liquor store that meds alone weren't enough to help me sleep, and wine didn't really help, but fuzzy navels seem to...

The man looked at him and said, "I can't condone what you're doing, but I understand."
(He found it humorous that he was being chastised by this rough looking liquor store man 

for buying alcohol for his lush of a wife ;-)

To understand the level of pain I am experiencing (so you can feel properly sorry for me ;-)

you should know 

that I recover from C-sections with nothing more than ibuprofen.

This is way worse. It's like active labor pains

- in my knee -

since Easters.