Greetings from a tired, hurting Laurel

It is no secret that I have been battling back pain for the past couple of years. It got so bad that at one point, there was a severe shift in my spine, making it look like my upper torso, and my lower body look as if it were split in half, then haphazardly put back together. It was painful to see for some, and even more painful to experience. I went through months of physical therapy, pain medications, and A LOT of tears from not being able to do regular day-to-day things. I had 4 different diagnoses from different doctors. Finally one said "ENOUGH" and said for me to try something I had been dreading, but also wanting...an epidural.

The whole process of an epidural is rather uneventful. However, I had something that resembled the arrival of the four horsemen of the Apocolypse pictured in my head due to my aversion to needles. I mean, who really relishes the thought of having a long needle stuck into their spine? Barf-fest, table one? I think so.

I pretty much really psyched myself out to the point where the doctor administering the epi wasn't going to go through with the procedure, but I bit the bullet and came through with the help of distracting conversation with the nurse, a cold ice pack and a little breeze from a portable fan. Of course, afterwards, I felt stupid. The process was nothing, and yet I had made the whole thing to be this huge event in my head. I went home, and within 3 hours, I could stand up straight and pain-free.

5 months later, and I'm sitting here, blogging at 6:30am in pain. I'm sitting on the living room couch hoping the pain meds will kick in so I can catch another hour of sleep before getting up and going to work. I'm not sure that will happen though. Oh well.

I have another call into the epidural doctor for another appointment for which I got another referral from my PCP. The pain isn't as bad as it once was before, but I'd like to nip this in the bud before it gets any worse. I'm calling the epi doctor today. I just hope I can get in there soon because the inability to sleep sometimes is really starting to get to me.