Still incredibly stressed out
I’m feeling incredibly stressed out and I know it. I’m trying to cope, but I’ve been having physical symptoms (tummy upset, back pain, insomnia). So last Wednesday, while I was at work, I Googled to see if I could find a massage therapist near the office. Turns out there is a chain massage place near the office. I’d prefer something a little less corporate, but when you find a massage place that’s less than two miles from your office that is open late nights and weekends, well, you gotta go check that out.
So Wednesday night, after the Agile Boston meeting, I drove over to scope out the office. When I realized just how close it was to the office, I went ahead and scheduled myself for a massage ASAP. Which turned out to be Thursday night. An hour of deep tissue massage. That I very much needed. (Although I could have done without the bruising…. Yeah, I got beat up.) I was actually surprised at how well my back held up to the massage. If I had to diagnose myself, I’d say that I’ve either got a pinched nerve or a bulging disc, which is causing occasional sciatic pain/tingling/numbness down my right leg. In the past I’ve occasionally had a masseuse hit the wrong spot on my spine and I get a shooting pain down that leg. Maybe it was because this guy stayed away from massaging directly on my spine, but I didn’t have any shooting pains (just “OMG I have knots” pains).
I spent most of the weekend moving from chair to chair, trying to find somewhere to sit (or some position to sit in) that didn’t hurt my back. One of the things that I’ve read about back pain is that more movement helps and things like immobilizing or bed rest may do more harm than good. But when you want to spent the day reading, you need to sit. *le sigh* So I’m going to suck it up and treat myself with Advil (I prefer to avoid taking drugs, but sometimes you need anti-inflammatories). And I’m trying to spend a little bit of time every day stretching out my back, hips, and legs. What I really need to do is lose a bunch of weight. But every time I start thinking about working out, I start stressing out about how I'm supposed to find the time and how I'm supposed to do it when my back freaking hurts.
And then there’s work, which is busy undoing all the good stuff that I’m trying to do for myself. I had to talk myself down off the ledge and do some deep breathing at least three times when I was feeling panicky and overwhelmed by how much work I have to do. I’ve spent the past week trying to finish up what was supposed to be a few quick edits on docs for a small utility. That project is such a clusterfuck, OMG. When my own co-workers are hopelessly confused (we have FOUR utilities with almost identical names), what chance do our customers have? It’s been two weeks since I’ve done any work on my own projects. Those are two weeks that I couldn’t afford to lose.
So Wednesday night, after the Agile Boston meeting, I drove over to scope out the office. When I realized just how close it was to the office, I went ahead and scheduled myself for a massage ASAP. Which turned out to be Thursday night. An hour of deep tissue massage. That I very much needed. (Although I could have done without the bruising…. Yeah, I got beat up.) I was actually surprised at how well my back held up to the massage. If I had to diagnose myself, I’d say that I’ve either got a pinched nerve or a bulging disc, which is causing occasional sciatic pain/tingling/numbness down my right leg. In the past I’ve occasionally had a masseuse hit the wrong spot on my spine and I get a shooting pain down that leg. Maybe it was because this guy stayed away from massaging directly on my spine, but I didn’t have any shooting pains (just “OMG I have knots” pains).
I spent most of the weekend moving from chair to chair, trying to find somewhere to sit (or some position to sit in) that didn’t hurt my back. One of the things that I’ve read about back pain is that more movement helps and things like immobilizing or bed rest may do more harm than good. But when you want to spent the day reading, you need to sit. *le sigh* So I’m going to suck it up and treat myself with Advil (I prefer to avoid taking drugs, but sometimes you need anti-inflammatories). And I’m trying to spend a little bit of time every day stretching out my back, hips, and legs. What I really need to do is lose a bunch of weight. But every time I start thinking about working out, I start stressing out about how I'm supposed to find the time and how I'm supposed to do it when my back freaking hurts.
And then there’s work, which is busy undoing all the good stuff that I’m trying to do for myself. I had to talk myself down off the ledge and do some deep breathing at least three times when I was feeling panicky and overwhelmed by how much work I have to do. I’ve spent the past week trying to finish up what was supposed to be a few quick edits on docs for a small utility. That project is such a clusterfuck, OMG. When my own co-workers are hopelessly confused (we have FOUR utilities with almost identical names), what chance do our customers have? It’s been two weeks since I’ve done any work on my own projects. Those are two weeks that I couldn’t afford to lose.