Enough Is Enough Already

Warning: I'm grumpy, frustrated, and plain ole' over it. There will be no neighbor post this week because if we were neighbors in real life, you'd know that I'm just not feeling it. But save your posts for next week, because, Lord willing, life will resume as 'normal' soon enough.

I try really hard to make my blog a happy place.

While I try to be honest about the ups and downs life can bring, I also realize that no one wants to read about the negative. So while I don't ignore the bad, I try to focus on the positive.

Except for today.

Because today I've had enough.

In case you're just now tuning in, my back has been hurting since January 19th.

I haven't picked up Hollyn since roughly a week after that.

That means that for over a month I haven't picked up my fourteen month old. She's sat in my lap and cuddled with me on the couch and whatnot, but it's so not the same.

And, to make matters worse, I'm not working this year.

Why is that, you might ask?

Well, I took the year off from teaching to be with her, the fourteen month whom I can no longer pick up and who has therefore spent the last month and a half in day care while I sit at home and hurt.

You'd think that with all this new found free time, I'd be living it up, right?

Not happening.

My back hurts twenty-four hours a day.

We're talking serious pain here, folks.

Bulging discs are no joke.

And despite the fact that I've done everything the chiropractor has told me to do during our seventeen hours we've spent together so far, my back is still a train wreck.

And later this morning I'm going in for a consult where we'll decide on what my next step will be.

He says I have three choices, and one of them is surgery.

So, not only can I not enjoy this moment because my back hurts so badly that I can hardly see straight, but I also can't make plans because I currently don't know what the future holds. And this is as bad for me as the pain. I am a plan-making kind of girl. My planner and I are basically BFF, so this is so not fun for me.  I'm not scared of surgery, but back surgery is its own beast. It's nowhere near 100% effective or a sure fix. In fact, many people have flat out told me not to do it. Still, it's not the surgery that makes me nervous, it's the toll that more time with me being basically out of commission is going to take on my family that has me losing sleep.

And, in case you're wondering, I've been going this route virtually pain-pill free. My back just laughs at the over-the-counter stuff, and I pretty much can't function when taking anything stronger than that. Although last night I caved. I took some leftover Lortab from a previous incident (I'm thinking wisdom teeth? Who knows.) and had the most terrible allergic reaction of my life. We're talking Def Kong Five here people. I'm still itching this morning.....about fifteen hours after taking the hated pill.

And while I can't pick Hollyn up, I refuse to not enjoy the little time I have with her every day.

I'm tough. I can take it, but it sure is getting old.

And while I can take the physical pain, it's the mental part that's really getting to me.  Sitting at home alone all day while someone else takes care of my kid isn't exactly my idea of fun. Add not knowing what's to come and whether or not surgery is in my near future doesn't help either. And can I just say that I love my couch, but sleeping on it every night for weeks on end is about all I can endure?

Let's throw in the fact that my grandmother came home from the hospital today after a three week stay, Libby woke up this morning looking absolutely terrible-- her skin stays bad but she always goes to school....except for today...because today it's all over her face, and I just couldn't do that to her. I've e-mailed her doctor, and hopefully he'll change something or do something or fix something SOON. And in case that wasn't enough,  Hollyn is probably about to get tubes put in her ears, seeing as how she has stayed sick non-stop since starting daycare. And why is she in daycare? Blame my back. It's a vicious cycle, folks. 

In short,  you can tell that our house is just a barrel of fun these days.

Even though I can't fix the physical pain from my back,

I have made numerous attempts at fixing my frame of mind.

These include but are not limited to the following:

* a lunch date with Molly

 

*a baseball game with good friends

*a Sonic run with my mom

*catching up on the latest Grey's episode

*laughing with Rachel

*spending some time curled up on the couch with a good book

*listening to my girls laugh at each other

*enjoying a Happy Meal, my comfort food of choice

*listening to (and loving) this song

*Heck, I've even gone as far as to give Doc his first taste of peanut butter so I could watch him make this face:

 

And still, I'm thinking that any minute now I just may lose what's left of my mind. I consider myself to be pretty tough, and I've endured a lot in my thirty-one years. But this is about to push me over the edge. It's just too much at once. I could handle any one of these incidents independently with no trouble whatsoever. But when you put it all together like this, it's nothing shy of a big. hot. mess.

So, I must know:

what do YOU do to make yourself feel better when the stress starts to really take its toll?

I'm seriously grasping at straws here, folks.

I'm a tough cookie, but enough is enough.

Thanks for listening to me rant and rave. I owe you big time.