Thursday, August 13, 2009

Little Life Lesson

Or maybe it's a big life lesson.

This will be the cliff notes version because I should be going to bed.

On Sunday morning I woke up with a twinge in my lower back. By yesterday (Wednesday) I was moving carefully but still completing the list of to do's I had for myself before Aaron's parents' arrival on Friday morning. Within an hour of being awake today, I was barely able to walk without serious pain. The only comfortable position was standing straight up. I leaned a bit to pick up my water out of the top shelf of the refrigerator and actually yelped in pain.

I called my family doctor, she said take 800mg motrin and call a chiropractor. I was able to get an appointment for 5pm today.

In between 9:30 when I called the doctor and 4:30 when I left for the chiropractor, the boys were absolutely fan-freaking-tastic. I literally followed them around giving them tasks to complete and they did them willingly. OK, so a little bribery helped. But they totally rose to the occasion and I couldn't be more proud.

The good news is that those 30 minutes at the chiropractor were like magic. My back is not back to normal, far from it, but I am walking and able to do things like open the fridge and kiss the boys goodnight (which I could not have done this morning). More good news is that he doesn't expect I have a serious injury and nothing that a few more adjustments won't correct completely. He said I will feel much better tomorrow morning (fingers crossed).

This was the first time I've ever seen a chiropractor and, in all honesty, I've poo poo'd them a bit in my mind. But I'll be damned if he wasn't fabulous and didn't help me tremendously.

But that is not the life lesson. There are two real lessons:

1) I've spent most of my life taking care of myself as a side thought. And I've been able to get away with it. But this is one of life's jolts that reminds you that you need to do the ongoing maintenance and care to keep you body behaving as it should. That includes eating healthy (not picking from your child's plate), stretching and strengthening your muscles (as opposed to going straight out the door to a run and then running back inside without a stretch), and listening to your body (if I listened to the twinge on Sunday perhaps I wouldn't be in this situation today). Will I make any changes? Who knows. But I appreciate the reminder from my body to take care of it.

2) I get very anxious when we have guests come over. I want the house to be perfect. Especially when it's Aaron's parents. I know that's normal but I suspect I take the desire to have things in order a bit to the extreme. I'm nothing if not a little OCD. But this time, many, if not most, of the to do's on my list are not done and are not going to be done. Frozen food falls on you when you open the freezer door. Cookies will come from the freezer, not fresh from the oven. The fingerprints on the windows will remain. And you know, life will go on. None of those factors will determine whether or not our guests have a nice time at our home. They are just things that give me the allusion of having control. And life is nothing if not an exercise in learning that we do not have control.

OK, going to down a bottle of motrin, lie down, and see if I can find a comfortable position.

Take care of your back, friends, because this really stinks.

xo






1 comment:

mel said...

I hope that you are feeling better soon. Keep the liberating lesson....As long as you have your health and the kids are happy, nothing else, including food tumbling from the fridge, matters...Be well.