The Holding Pattern Continues

The knitting continues it's holding pattern.

I finally broke down and went to the doctor about my back/leg on Friday.  Doc claimed it to be a pinched sciatic nerve (which I already knew) and a sprained back, which I believe is a much easier way of saying, "I have a weakened back due to an old windsurfing accident, I'm getting old, and I should have known better than to lift a chair over my head & carry it around the house."  I left the doctor's office with a huge dent in my wallet, prescriptions for pain pills, muscle relaxers and some prednisone and an itchy butt due to the Bandaid they gave me after I got a shot for the pain.  I always forget to mention that my trunk seems to be allergic to adhesive.

So here I am on Sunday evening, not much better, but no worse.  The pain pills definitely help me sleep and I'm much more comfortable when resting, but I still can't walk properly.  I'm bent way over so that my head is almost at crotch level, and I have "toe drop" which means that sometimes I can't put my heel down on the floor and some times, I can't lift my toes so that my foot just drags when I walk.  It's quite attractive!  Oh, and my entire leg has gone numb to the touch.  It's very strange because today, it keeps itching, but I can't feel it when I scratch.  It's a VERY strange feeling.  Or lack of feeling.

Between the pain pills and the muscle relaxers, I look like a Heroin addict.  My eyes are a bit glazed & unfocused and I nod off constantly.  I've had to put aside all the knitting projects I had going and have been knitting a simple garter stitch scarf with scrap yarn.  It's been interesting because although I can not, for the life of me, knit in a movie theater, I can apparently knit in my sleep.  I'll start a row, feel myself nodding off and wake up at the end of the row.  And 49 out of every 50 stitches are good ones! I'd like to show you a photo, but the camera is upstairs at the end of the hall and I'm down stairs at the opposite end of the house.  Oddly, walking up the stairs is easy (as long as my toes aren't dragging) but the effort to get to the stairs is rather painful.  Every time I stand up, my thigh & butt get massive muscle spasms and just above my knee feels like it's being squeezed to death while at the same time feeling like it's going to explode from the inside out, plus the sensation of being hit by a lightening bolt and a hot iron, all at the same time.  It's definitely not worth the effort of going in search of the camera.

I am excited to say that our recent heat wave has broken.  We've been hitting temperatures of 103 & 104 almost daily for the last several weeks.  I can not tell you how much fun it is to lay on a heating pad when it's 104F.  I'm also excited that, so far, the horrendous storms that brought the cold front to us have not hit our house.  We've heard some thunder and our temperature has dropped into the mid 80's but that's it.  No wind, no floods, no hail, no tornados.  I thank the Heavens for that.  I was NOT looking forward to dealing with muscle spasms while hiding out in the "tornado room" which is actually a 2 foot by 2 foot bathroom.

Hopefully, the drugs and the bed rest will kick in soon and I'll be back on my feet soon.  Meanwhile, please pardon the typos.  I blame them on the drugs.