The past week has been absolute torture for me, and probably everyone around me.  I’m not sure what I did, or even how I did it but I’ve managed to completely throw my back out to a level that I’ve never experienced before.  I’ve always dealt with Sciatica so it’s no surprise to me if I feel a random twinge here and there, but the flare ups have always been the issue that I can’t seem to avoid, no matter what I do.  This past weekend was probably the worst of the worst, even getting up to get myself a glass of water is a half hour event due to the fact that walking is more painful than breathing.

I noticed the twinge on Saturday and figured “Ehh, Rain’s coming – I’m used to this happening”, but waking up on Sunday I was instantly hit with the feeling of “Oh shit, can I even get out of bed?” After a half hour of working on it I was finally able to, but since then things have just been beyond painful.   Standing up straight isn’t possible, I’ve been leaning to cater to the pain, which has sent my entire back and legs out of wack.  As I said, breathing isn’t easy either – especially if I’m laying down cause the pressure on my back is excruciating.  Sleeping isn’t working out too well either as I’m a stomach sleeper and turning onto my stomach is more effort than its worth so I’ve been sleeping flat on my back for the bulk of the week and I feel that’s making things worse.  It’s just too painful to roll over in order to attempt to get comfortable.

Sitting at my desk hasn’t been much of an option either, I’ve got a small laptop table for the bedroom that I’ve been using, and laying in bed while working is the only way to go at this point.  I’m about a week behind on EVERYTHING because I wasn’t even able to bring WORK into the equation until last night.  There are clients waiting (very patiently) for me to get things done, and I feel like a complete asshole for not being able to sit down long enough to do it before I break down in tears cause I moved my foot and sent a shooting pain straight up to my shoulder blades.

Last night I was able to knock out about 8 hours of work, but that wasn’t even a ‘catch up’, kind of thing.  There’s much, much more to be completed today and I’m hoping I’ll be able to sit down and knock everything out.  I would say “Thank goodness for Memorial Day weekend” but all of my clients are located overseas at the moment so that doesn’t even help me out in the long run.  It would be nice to sit down for three straight days to catch up on everything and hopefully I’ll be able to do it.

I feel bad that I can’t just get up and go, especially since the annual fireworks are going on in Sea Cliff this weekend.  I really would like to go, but the only way to get anywhere near there would be to park at Muir’s house and walk down and that’s a downhill climb that I can’t even think of accomplishing. I’m lucky I’ve made  it to the sidewalk of my own house to bring the dog out to pee.  To make things worse, I’ve been (somehow) getting to my Aunt’s every day for the past week to throw some food down for her cat as she’s in Myrtle Beach until Saturday and then going out east to spend a long Memorial Day weekend with her friends.  So regardless I’m stuck on the North Shore for this holiday weekend (again) anyway.

Sean was really helping me get around for the past week, like a trooper, but over the last few days we’ve noticed his foot has swelled up to at least 3 times the size and he’s having trouble moving around.  He thinks he stepped wrong, I personally don’t know where or when, but he’s hobbling along much slower than I am.  The two of us look like we should be walking into a hospital when you actually see us outside.  It’s to the point of being comical.

So yea, today’s agenda includes knocking out as much as humanly possible – which will be the theme for the entire weekend.  The only addition that I would like to hold off (but really can’t) is wiping this laptop completely and reinstalling Windows.  I don’t know what the hell happened to this thing but it’s slower than shit and random errors keep popping up.  Figure I’ve had it for about two years, and we all know Laptops under $1,200 can be considered disposable  – especially after two years of Photoshop constantly running.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal considering I have that massive 27-inch iMac on my desk but SITTING at my desk hasn’t been a possibility in almost a week so of course I can’t really count on that just yet.  So I’ll complete what I can, from bed, and then hopefully I can spend some of Monday getting this thing back to where it’s supposed to be – proper working condition.