Long absence from LJ
I don't have time for a long post today, but the last two months have been rather significant, and I should post SOMETHING. For over a month I couldn't even sit at the computer and making a post from my phone is possible but a real exercise in frustration. So...the short version.
The night we went to Medieval Times, I started feeling incredible pain in my lower back. It got worse and worse over the next couple weeks. I saw doctors, got medicines, went to PT, was refused an MRI, spent over two weeks barely getting up from the bed or couch (it would take me an hour sometimes to build up the strength of will to get up to pee), I missed teacher week, the first two days of school, almost all of the third week of school. Keira had to make me breakfast and do the laundry. The pain radiated down to my foot, I lost strength in my ankle, and eventually I had numbness start spreading across the skin of my foot and leg. After 5 weeks insurance finally allowed the MRI which shows my disc has slipped far enough into my spinal cord that PT will not get it back in. I have seen a neurosurgeon who wants to remove that part of the disc. I'm waiting for a second opinion from a spine-specialized orthopedic surgeon. I'm likely going to have the surgery and be out of work for the month of November.
Meanwhile, Keira started second grade and turned 7. I've missed two monthly updates. :( She learned to cook scrambled eggs by herself. We got her a real telescope. I made her an awesome Powerpuff Girls/Space birthday cake. She has been playing more and more with the kids on the street and seems to somehow have become the one who takes care of their problems (like when a kid falls off a bike) and the one who holds all of them together (when she fell off her bike and came inside to cry and be taken care of, all the other kids went into one kid's house and made her "feel better" cards. Another time, several of the kids were all playing separately in their own yards, and when BJ brought Keira home and she got out of the car, they reportedly all cried "Keira's home" and converged in our yard). This makes me really happy...I've been a little concerned for years that she has trouble integrating herself into groups (never any problems with an individual, though) and she's seemed to have gotten that figured out.
Anyway, right now Keira's waiting for me to finish this so I can watch Phineas and Ferb with her. I don't know when I'll post again, but at least I've chronicled something.
The night we went to Medieval Times, I started feeling incredible pain in my lower back. It got worse and worse over the next couple weeks. I saw doctors, got medicines, went to PT, was refused an MRI, spent over two weeks barely getting up from the bed or couch (it would take me an hour sometimes to build up the strength of will to get up to pee), I missed teacher week, the first two days of school, almost all of the third week of school. Keira had to make me breakfast and do the laundry. The pain radiated down to my foot, I lost strength in my ankle, and eventually I had numbness start spreading across the skin of my foot and leg. After 5 weeks insurance finally allowed the MRI which shows my disc has slipped far enough into my spinal cord that PT will not get it back in. I have seen a neurosurgeon who wants to remove that part of the disc. I'm waiting for a second opinion from a spine-specialized orthopedic surgeon. I'm likely going to have the surgery and be out of work for the month of November.
Meanwhile, Keira started second grade and turned 7. I've missed two monthly updates. :( She learned to cook scrambled eggs by herself. We got her a real telescope. I made her an awesome Powerpuff Girls/Space birthday cake. She has been playing more and more with the kids on the street and seems to somehow have become the one who takes care of their problems (like when a kid falls off a bike) and the one who holds all of them together (when she fell off her bike and came inside to cry and be taken care of, all the other kids went into one kid's house and made her "feel better" cards. Another time, several of the kids were all playing separately in their own yards, and when BJ brought Keira home and she got out of the car, they reportedly all cried "Keira's home" and converged in our yard). This makes me really happy...I've been a little concerned for years that she has trouble integrating herself into groups (never any problems with an individual, though) and she's seemed to have gotten that figured out.
Anyway, right now Keira's waiting for me to finish this so I can watch Phineas and Ferb with her. I don't know when I'll post again, but at least I've chronicled something.