Saturday adventure

Those that follow me on facebook or encountered me over the last few days have hear some mutterings of this adventure, but it is probably worth chronicling and/or clearing up as best I can here.

The story, more or less, begins on Friday morning.  M woke up randomly at 5:30 freezing in her crib due to inappropriate pjs, not using her blankets and arguably our house being too cold. She went quickly back to sleep, but as I was holding her I noticed my sternum was hurting again. This happened once before with more emphasis on my collar bone in August, I think, after a bit too much Zumba in too short a time span.  This time, however, my workouts had been light and it had been two days since my last Zumba class.   I was perplexed and the pain grew.  I took medicine, of course, but that didn't help, sleeping was too painful so I tried a chair and ultimately a very hot bath.  We tried antacids too, just in case.  Finally the bath, drugs and back rub from Brent worked it down to a manageable level.  I was, however, very achy, sore, nauseated, tired and if not right on schedule with Tylenol in significant pain.  I decided to be reasonable and took the day off work to recover as I'm not much use in that condition.  I did, however, have both kids home with me so wasn't really that restful until Brent arrived about 2--- although B did attempt to nap with me for an hour between 1 and 2 and M took her best nap ever 3.5 hours.

The pain was still there, but manageable through the evening of playing at Brent's parents' house with Jamie, John, Marilyn, Brent and our kids (very fun!).  Sleeping was still tricky, but again doable.  Saturday, we bought groceries and then came home for naps and an attempt at crafting for me.  Things didn't go that well crafting so I attempted to join the rest of my family in a nap (Brent accidentally took allergy medicine that wasn't non-drowsy which makes him extra sleepy too).  The pain spiked again, big time.  I couldn't get it shut down and decided I really did have to go to urgent care despite the cost as it was just too much.  Luckily, there is a brand new spiffy urgent care on our street so we loaded up our still sleepy wacky kids and headed off as I was in too much pain to drive.

Luckily, when you present with chest pain you are seen immediately.  Brent filled out my paperwork while we went through the usual questions. The Dr. and I both tended to think it was skeletal muscular (exact term I'm fuzzy on), but to rule out anything else, particularly with my family's history of heart issues, we did an EKG and tried treating it as possible gastro issues too (no impact).  EKG was totally fine and the meds I'd taken an hour or so before had started to take the edge off which lead back to the original thoughts.  My lungs sounded totally clear and fine and I hadn't had any viruses in more than a month so we marked most lung things out too.  He decided on steroids and pain medicine and off I went with instructions to go to my Doctor if it wasn't improving in 3-5 days.   (P.s. I did really like the urgent care - Access Medical-- if you are looking for one in west Edmond).

We had Sonic while the meds were filled and headed home.  It took awhile for everything to kick in, but then I was amazed how much better I was.  I don't think I'd realized how long I'd been putting up with some pain until most of it had abated.  Due to my reactions to Lortab and related drugs I try to take as little pain medicine as I can to minimize possible reactions if any, but so far so good.  After about a day and a half I find that as long as I stick to a very close schedule of drugs and try to pick M up as little as possible I do ok.  We went to the Science Center today and I failed to stay "ahead of my pain" and it got uncomfortable again, but was quickly remedied.  It is so hard not to pick M up and carry her much, but when I do it hurts much more.  It is possible that this is, in fact, one of the things that is causing the injury itself.  She is, however, my baby lady and some carrying is just necessary with a one year old.  Luckily there were lots of adults around today to help out (Special thanks to Scott in this category)

I wouldn't say I did a good job of resting today (see other posts to come) but will try to do so this week.  Sad to not be in Zumba again and sad to have to deal with the pain, but glad there are meds to help out and a positive prognosis for now.  I don't do well with limits, but am trying to accept that if I don't honor them in times like this I'll just be out of action longer.  So, generally, I feel pretty good most of the time now and no need to worry.  If I find out something more I'll let you know.  Hugs and happy thoughts!