Pain in the Butt…Saga of Sciatica
A real pain in the butt…yup, you read it right! That is what life has dealt me lately. It all started about three weeks ago when we cleaned the garage. The boys and I (ok, really it was just I that decided) it was time to clean the garage and get it ready for spring! In the course of a few hours we had filled two trashcans with the winter crud and had boxed up all the stray Christmas stuff and winter coats. For the next few days I was rendered – OLD…you know, hunched over with a “crick in my back”. I decided to do what I usually do when in that predicament…trot off to the chiropractor.
Pain in the butt part 2: I hadn’t been to the chiropractor in – well, probably a year. So I had to find his new office and re-establish myself as a patient. A new X-ray was done and then finally, an adjustment. I must be really getting old because the next morning, my back wasn’t much better so I went for another adjustment. This one seemed to help “almost” make the pain go away and I had a fairly comfortable weekend.
Pain in the butt part 3: Monday dawned bright and clear (now it has been a week of hobbling around with this low back pain that is now spreading down the right cheek) so I headed off to the chiropractor and I got a little massage and then an adjustment…so this adjustment felt a bit more forceful but I was hopeful this was the ticket to everything clicking back in place. WRONG!! In the middle of the night, something on that side seemed to click all right, but the pain clamped down and shot right down the length of my leg and curled all the way around my big toe.
Pain in the butt part 4: I practically crawled into the chiropractor the next day…he put me on the ice table, did the little electrode thing and gave me one more really forceful adjustment….NO RELIEF….during the night that night I was in so much pain I had to get up and suck down 800 mg of Motrin….then 1000 mg Tylenol and I hunched over in a toad-like position where I rocked on my elbows, knees tucked under my chest and I prayed for a truck to drive through the great-room window and end my misery. Amazingly enough, the family kind of just accepted the fact that I was crumpled on the carpet like a toad and we made it through all of school…after my mother-in-law had taken me to the Baptist East Urgent Care for a shot of Toradol and a bottle of Percocet…the Percocet only made me nauseous. So in the afternoon I got in to Apex Physical Therapy where they did this glorious cold-ultra sound kind of thing and moved my leg around in varying positions to where I realized that if I reached my arm above my head and contorted the leg as far back as is possible, the “curling around the toe pain” would ease for 2.5 seconds.
Pain in the butt part 5: My kids were off to pageant and my mother-in-law had gone to church to man the kitchen….I was again in the toad-like-hunch. My friend Bev happened by to find me on the floor in the “shot-put stretch”…desperately trying to achieve the Apex 2.5 second pain-relief. At about this point I was literally begging for death. Bev helped me hobble out to her little car where we extended the front seat as far back as we could get it and I assumed the seat-belt-LESS toad-bend position while she drove to the closest emergency room. I was barely coherent by now. I was not sure whether I was nauseous from the pain or the Percocet but I was now vomiting from the pain. I was MISERABLE. They could have told me to stand on my head, stick out my tongue and let them run over the tongue with the X-ray machine and I would have welcomed it as a different type of pain. I was begging for drugs. They did provide drugs and at 2am I was once again back at home…
Pain in the butt part 6: Morning dawned to have Ben find me once again hunched in my toad-heap on the carpet, bowl in front of me and all my pill bottles around me. (At 2 am he had gone to Walgreens and filled all 8 prescriptions)…which were once again, not working. He called my regular doctor to ask for the MRI the ER doctor had WANTED to do the night before but was unable to order since he couldn’t follow up on whatever the MRI showed. Dejectedly we agreed to go to the office at 3pm so SHE could SEE me. As the day drew on muscle contractions started in the leg – driving me into several other contorted positions as I MOANED with pain that knocked the wind out of me. By noon I was once again almost delirious with this pain. (I know you are thinking I am exaggerating…I am NOT). Poor Josh had to practically carry me down the stairs as I was SOBBING and PLEADING to go back to the emergency room.
Pain in the butt part 7: Elizabeth drove me to Norton Suburban where Ben met me at the door with a wheelchair, which I couldn’t even sit in. I had all my precious pill bottles in my “puke-bowl” and I was sobbing out as much as I could even tell them but Ben had to keep filling in the details because I was being racked with pain so badly. Everything from that point on was a bit of a blur as they gave me the mega-drugs again and pretty soon I found myself inside an MRI machine. No surprise, I had a herniated disc and my sciatic nerve was compressed. Mentally I was so not ready to hear the word “surgery” with that diagnosis, however. So by Sunday I had hobbled down the hall of the hospital by clutching the wall enough times that my toes were no longer numb and I was taking the pain pills every four hours again…(so no more iv pain meds), which to me meant I was ready to go home and “get better”. Dr. Villanueva had TRIED to tell me all the “Red Flags” were pointing toward surgery but I would have none of that.
Pain in the butt part 8: Monday morning I called to make my “follow-up” appointment with Dr. Villanueva. He had told me he was going on vacation Thursday and the receptionist confirmed this and said I needed to see him Wednesday. I hung out in Abbey’s bed most of Monday but I took several short walks – which were excruciating – but I thought that if I just pushed myself a little harder, this thing would snap back in place and the pain would go away.
Pain in the butt part 9: Tuesday morning I got up early so I could re-color Isaac’s hair for the pageant. By the time I had the color on his hair I was almost in tears. My toes were numb, the pain was all the way down my leg and I practically crawled back up the stairs. For the rest of the day all I did was wait for more pain pills and worry about the fact that the Dr. was going on vacation on Thursday!
Pain in the butt part 10: Tuesday night was a horrible night. I was in so much pain during the night and I was so worried that the Dr. would just blow off the pain because he was in a hurry to get on his vacation the next day. I had a total meltdown with Ben when he came in to kiss me goodbye for the morning. He was so nice. He prayed over me and we asked the Lord to just really show us the right path to take about the pain in my leg. We also asked the Lord to let the doctor be more concerned with fixing my leg than going on vacation.
I limped and hobbled my way in to the doctor’s office (which, by the way, makes me ask the question, “why in the world does a BACK Dr. -NEUROSURGEON HAVE AN OFFICE ON THE 5TH FLOOR OF AN OFFICE BUILDING?!”)…
God SENT THE EMAIL: The doctor found that my reflexes were worse than Sunday…my foot was turned out 45 degrees, I could not even sit still for him to do all this investigation/diagnosing…and when the doctor told me that he was willing to go on his vacation LATER IN THE DAY the next day just so he could do surgery to release the nerve, I knew that the angels’ had just said, “You’ve GOT MAIL” straight from heaven!
Pain in the Neck: Part 1…So while I was at the doctor to hear I was having surgery the next day, my wonderful friend, Linda, was at the doctor with Gaber. Gabe had strep throat…and not just a mild little case of it. His temperature was 103 and he had BLEEDING PUSTULES in the back of his throat! She picked up his meds and although the doctor had offered to put me in the hospital that night for more iv pain meds, I refused and went home so I could be with Gaber…poor guy…he and I laid on Abbey’s bed and endured our individual pain together! Olivia was at the pageant so it was just me and Master of Disaster feeling sorry for ourselves!
Pain in the Neck Part 2: Although I was really not happy about having surgery – I was anxious to just get the thing over with. I was so happy when they finally got the IV going and they told Ben to go wait in the waiting room. The next thing I knew I was coming out of the anesthesia thinking to myself, “Why are they interrupting me while I’m praying for my c-group kids?” Then the next thing I was thinking was, “I can’t breathe! My throat is closing!” The sensation of having the tube down my throat for the general anesthesia made it feel like I couldn’t breathe or swallow. I was starting to panic so I prayed, “Lord, please tell me a verse…please say something to me that will help me know You are HERE.” Immediately I heard, “My grace is sufficient for you, MY STRENGTH is being made perfect in your weakness.” That kept going through my mind and I was able to lie back and calm down. Of course, then I started to need PAIN MEDICINE AGAIN…but thankfully, they gave me some drugs again and pretty soon I was up in a room. When I was able to, I got up! Amazingly, the pain radiating from my back down my leg was ALREADY GONE! The foot pain, however, was still there.
Pain in the Neck/Butt…almost the end: I am now a week past surgery. I’m parked on the couch and my family is taking really great care of me. I’ve made it past the tough first days when I nearly did-myself-in by not following the post-op instructions for SHORT walks…which resulted in a great deal of pain for the remainder of the day. Four days in a row I just stayed in bed in Abbey’s room. This almost drove me insane but at the same time, has helped my incision pain to go away. The only residual pain is the feeling of Napalm having been spread along the top of my foot and wrapped around my big toe. The pain in that poor nerve is still like a burning fire in the foot. If I rub my foot on the sheet it feels like I’ve just electrocuted my foot.
Despite all of that I do have a few take-aways from this whole episode. (Do I ever just have an event in my life without take-aways?…um, no, now that you mention it, there are ALWAYS take-aways!)
Take-away # 1: I need to pray for the people in my life who are in chronic pain a lot more than I have been.
Take away # 2: I am grateful. I know it is of no coincidence that at the time all this happened, I was in the thick of reading a fabulous book called, 1000 gifts by Ann Voskamp. The book is about the joy of living in what she calls, “Eucharisteo” (giving God thanks for all things). I have found so many things to be thankful for in the midst of this crazy experience. Some of them are simple, little things – like the privilege of watching the tree outside Abbey’s window transform from a mass of brown, dry branches into a vibrant, white-flowering wonder. Or some of them are so ordinary they are extraordinary… like the family I have and the friends I have and the people in my life that love and care about me. I don’t think I stop and think about them with utter gratitude enough…like I have lately.
Take away #3: (This is the BEST ONE) God really IS always with me…ALWAYS! It was such a comfort for God HIMSELF to remind me of this right at the moment I needed Him. I can clearly see His loving hand in all of this. His timing though tough has been perfect. Think about it, if the whole scenario started one day later, Dr. Villanueva would have been on vacation by the time I was ready to give in to surgery. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that about a month ago I had asked the Lord to heal my back forever. I’ve been struggling with back/hip pain for 16 years…ever since I stupidly wallpapered a bathroom 3 days after having Josh, came down the ladder and twisted my hips out of joint. All this time I have had pain that could be “pushed” back into place. It has hindered my running. It has given me much aggravation. When Dr. Villanueva opened up that disc space he found a piece of floating bone fragment…God knew it was there. He knew the ONLY way for me to be healed was for me to need that space opened up! What I saw as a terribly inconvenient interruption in all of our lives is actually the start of His answering my prayer! GOD IS SO INTIMATELY INVOLVED in my life…He really is ALWAYS with me! And when I am weak (all the time) HE IS STRONG!
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
Vicki Feinn was raised in a Christian home and accepted Jesus as her savior at the age of five. At the age of eleven she gave herself to the Lord to be used in any way He wanted to use her. 
