Bad back! Bad!

I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for clothes that fit these days. Theoretically I should have scads of stuff, because I am still smaller in the waist ("waist") than I was at the end of the last pregnancy, and I had plenty of clothing then. I think the fatal flaw in that theory is that the last pregnancy was in winter, so I have lots of jeans. It went up to 30 today -- I ain't wearing jeans.

I'm down to a couple of skirts and a couple of dresses, which aren't much use for going to the park with Delphine or sitting on the floor playing with Lego. So I made plans, last Thursday, for Morgan to babysit Delphine for a couple of hours in the morning while I went to Old Navy or some other appallingly cheap place and got a couple of pairs of appallingly cheap maternity shorts or capris or something.

Instead of doing that, though, I slipped a disk. It was really quite well planned. Morgan works at a the same Health Clinic as my chiropractor, and I already had her lined up to babysit. She lives right by me so she and Erik were able to come over to my place to help me get myself and Delphine downtown to the clinic.

But it was bad, it was so bad. I have never hurt my back this bad before; I actually cried. Usually I am stoic, but there was yelping and crying this time. The chiro said it was the worst she had seen in fifteen years -- she could hardly touch me. And it was really stupid and entirely my fault; my back has been so good lately that I haven't been doing any of the stretching and strengthening exercises I am supposed to do, and I injured myself by half-bending over with Delphine in my arms, which is perhaps number one on the long list of things I am not supposed to do (I have slipped this same disk before).

So all my chiro was able to do for me on Thursday was send me home with some exercises to encourage the disk back into place, and strict instructions to lie down all day and ice my back. I had to call Blake to come home with me and look after Delphine while I just lay around (which he did without a murmur because he is a good man -- plus he likes to hang out with Delphine).

Friday Delphine had daycare; I woke up feeling better, well enough to shuffle across the street with Blake to drop her off, and then it was back to bed. I was way better by my next chiro appointment that afternoon -- the doctor was astounded at how much better I was. She gave me some more treatment (mostly she doesn't do chiro on me, she does soft-tissue therapy called Active Release Techniques which is pretty phenomenal, although I am a little scared to do any research on it in case it's actually just quackery. But it's patented!) and sent me home with instructions to keep doing what I was doing.

Anyway, it's now Monday, and I am almost all better. I think that's pretty amazing, going from totally crippled to almost healed in five days. If my rapid healing were an Academy Award, I would thank Blake and Morgan and Erik for dropping everything to help me get better, and I would thank myself for being smart and asking for help instead of trying to be heroic.

It's only today that I've been able to pick up and hold Delphine. Four days without being able to cuddle her was hard, and sad. It wasn't just the not cuddling, but knowing I couldn't pick her up if she hurt herself, or run to her if she was in danger left me feeling like half a mother. I don't know how parents with chronic pain or disability do it. I feel like my own physical ability is intrinsic to my ability to be a good parent, and I didn't realize I felt that way until my physical ability was compromised.

Anyway, between the pain of my bad back and not being able to have contact with Delphine the way I'm used to, and not being able to keep up with housework, and this weird altercation I had with a guy in the lobby of my building this morning, and some other health problems I will not burden you with the details of, I am floating in this weird miasma of not-right-ness. I expect that now that I am mostly better, after a couple of days of normality (or what passes for it in this time of interminable and tedious flux) I will feel okay again.