I Just Snapped.

Fact: I’m almost 37 weeks pregnant.

Fact: On Tuesday my 37 week pregnant back snapped.

This is what happened:

Since last Friday I’d had this nagging pain in my back, getting more annoying and painful by the day. I had similar pains with Casen – didn’t think much of it. By the time the afternoon rolled around the pain had increased so much I was in a perpetual state of sweating. My patient I was about to send home, in fact asked me if I was ok. It was like a light turned on. BING! No, I’m absolutely not ok, I thought. I gingerly walked into the OR where I was about to tell Jenna she’d have to discharge the rest of our patients for the day. I was going home. Another coworker saw me in the meantime and immediately found a wheelchair, carefully sat me in it, and without even consulting me, wheeled me down to the ER.

At this point it felt as if mass chaos had ensued. We are a small hospital with a small staff. We’re all pretty close. And boy do we look out for each other! The sight of me in a wheelchair on the verge of tears sent to rumor of “Anna’s in labor!” around the hospital. Uh, so not true. But with all the excitement and attention, I started crying and getting scared, the pain in my mid-back escalated from somewhat tolerable to me rating it at a 10, which did indeed start contractions.

When things settled down a bit, contractions included, I realized I was acting like a psychotic lady who truly was in labor, screaming things like “Give me the juice!” and asking my dear coworkers to “PLEASE PLEASE get my scrubs OFF OF ME!” The silly things we say in times of distress.

The next 2 days were mixed with highs and lows. Highs due to the awesome relief some of that good ‘juice’ can offer and lows as test after test revealed negative results. Most of my blood work came back within normal limits. Ultrasounds of gallbladder, kidneys, liver, appendix came back clean. CT scans showed nothing remarkable. Even injections of local anesthetic at painful trigger points in my back offered little relief. Then my OB/GYN came up with the idea that he believes I’ve ruptured a disc at the T8-T9 level of my spine. It all adds up. My predisposition to disc problems due to scoliosis at the T levels, the caustic nature of disc jelly to nerves and muscle when it is squeezed out of the disc, causing the severe pain. Since everything else checked out, this was the most likely diagnosis. An MRI would confirm this, but since I’d already had some radiation exposure and it wouldn’t change the treatment we were doing anyway, we opted out of the MRI. Plus, the MRI van only makes it’s rounds to our area every other week.

So with a fairly positive diagnosis of ruptured disc, I was sent home on ‘light bed rest’ (whatever that means!), some pain meds and a TENS unit to get me through the next 3 weeks until baby girl comes on March 1st.

The pain is controlled ok with meds. To breathe in deeply, laugh, sneeze, cough or yawn is murder on my back. My major daily accomplishments consist of showering myself and maybe getting Casen’s hair combed. Today I even folded a few clothes!

Fact: Casen has been a trooper through the whole week. He just goes with the flow, would hangout with me at the hospital and lets me rest here at home when I need it. Our ward has totally pitched in. Casen has had a place to go play every afternoon while Kyle’s a work and meals started coming in almost the minute we walked in the door from the hospital.

Fact: To say that Kyle has been awesome through this would be the understatement of the year. All the housework seems to get done, sidewalks shoveled, dogs taken care of, we get fed, the fire stays burning, Casen gets changed and wrestled and he still gets his hours in for work. Kyle is something else I tell you. How did I get so lucky?

Fact: I am pretty darn blessed and happy even though March 1st feels like an eternity away! In the meantime I have a stack of books recommended by some great friends, 65 more episodes of Everybody Love Raymond and a solitaire game I need to get my average up on.