so, what a-happened, was....

I hit rock bottom.


As you know, I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in bed.  Friday night I had to go rescue the poet, who fainted at urgent care at the thought of a tetanus shot (I know), and then we had to go to CVS to get him some antibiotics.  On the way into CVS, I slipped in the parking lot.  I didn't fall, just slid a little on some loose gravel, but the way I grabbed myself sent ridiculous and searing pain everywhere.  And about 10 steps later, I could no longer walk.  Literally not one more step.


I'm not sure how I got back to the car, but I sat there while the poet waited on his prescription and bawled my little eyes out.  And when we got back home, and I didn't have the strength to lift my legs out of the car, I knew I was in a dark place.  That's it.  That's the moment where I hit rock bottom.  I could not take another moment of being in that kind of pain.  We started talking about going to the emergency room right then, and I started googling what was going on some more, because the universal message I got from everyone on Friday was, "hmmm, you really should be feeling better by now."  According to Dr. Internet, if it wasn't SI joint inflammation (which should have improved after a week), it was probably a hip or pelvic stress fracture.  As they say in the big city, fanfuckingtastic.  We decided that it would be a long night in the ER and instead to go the next morning.


Saturday morning I got up and called a close friend who is a doctor (an ER doc, in fact) and he told me what he would do if I marched into his ER, which was essentially take x-rays and refer me to an ortho.  So, hoping for a shorter wait than an ER, I went over to Urgent Care in Arlington, prepared for a long day with granola bars, 2 books, a fully charged iPad and a Costco-sized bottle of ibuprofen.  I was there for most of the day.  They gave me a shot in the butt of Taradol (super-sized NSAID) and took a round of x-rays.  The first round was inconclusive, so they took a second set focusing on the sacrum and from a few different angles.  The doctor that examined me was concerned that I either had a stress fracture or a ligament strain, the latter of which could have pulled a bone fragment off of my sacrum and that, boys and girls, could be what was causing all the pain.  After the second set, I waited for a few hours but as it turned out, their x-ray-reader-machine wasn't cooperating, so they sent me home with a script for Flexaril (super-de-duper muscle relaxer) and told me they would call me.


They did, Sunday morning, but only to tell me that it was inconclusive again.  The Taradol seems to have calmed things down a bit, thanks heavens.  I'm still in a fair amount of pain while walking, and I'm still getting sharp stablets of pain when I twist or bend oddly, but it's less excruciating.  The muscle relaxers don't seem to be doing much for the pain but baby, do they send me flying.  As you are reading this, I'm sitting in the waiting room of the magical mystery man, Dr. P, hoping for a band-aid that will allow me to race on Saturday.  

I'll worry about the rest of my life next week, but I'm sure it will start with another round of PT.  And yes, I took a shower AND put on makeup for my appointment.  Wouldn't you?


So, for now, no news, but just the act of doing something has helped me to start climbing out of the huge canyon of sad I was in last week.  I am so grateful for all the good karma you guys are sending my way.  Thank you so incredibly much, and please, if you can, keep it coming.  I need every drop.  And it's what I'll be thinking about when I'm lined up Saturday morning, ready to fight.  You can count on one thing: I will not go quietly.