21 weeks, 5 days: Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Phew.... What a weekend. What a weekend.

The past five days have probably been some of the most physically challenging in my life. How glad I am to be through them!

On Friday I was housecleaning to prepare for Saturday's houseguests. All was well, and then.... my back started hurting. Slowly, then more, and more, and more.... until I finally knew that it wasn't playing around. At first I wasn't too concerned, but it kept getting worse until Friday night when I was having serious difficulties just walking. What a nightmare!

Thankfully, this is not a new experience... this is back-injury/strain/etc. #3 for me. The last time happened when we were about 6 weeks pregnant with our very first baby. Each time has occurred when I've taken too much time off from exercising, which has definitely been the case for me since Christmas (severe nausea = no exercise). I've had a bad/painful back ever since pre-adolescence, so any time of inactivity is its cue to go nuts. And it did... big time.

From an outsider's perspective, there is definitely the humorous side to a back injury. For example, when one is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how on earth one is going to get out of bed..... and, once one is up, how to lie back down again! Or learning how to brush one's teeth without leaning over, or get dressed without being able to move past vertical - or a hundred other things. What a mess!

Our houseguests ended up coming as planned, and I'm afraid I was a rotten hostess. My DH did most of the entertaining, and my sweet aunt did all of the housework (dishes, cooking, etc.) as well as playing with DS while I lay in my room on the heating pad.

Here's an interesting tidbid of information: My nausea levels rose sky-high with my back injury. At first I thought it was from the pain (which was intense, and for which Tylenol did nothing to help), but then I remembered that I hadn't had nausea the other two times I'd hurt my back. I also remembered that in my HG (hyperemesis) research, I'd run across chiropractic care as a remedy for morning sickness. Interesting, isn't it? Spine out of alignment = increased nausea. Spine back in alignment = decreased nausea. I'm a believer!!!

On Sunday I had no choice but to play for service per my commitment, and it was probably one of the toughest services I've done! After staggering in (with the best pregnant waddle you've ever seen... and it wasn't even due to pregnancy!) and gingerly perching myself on the piano bench, I stayed there for the entire service, praying just to get through it. I don't think I amazed anyone with a stellar performance, but at least I made it.

The funniest part (ONLY in retrospect) was during the sermon. I was sitting on the piano bench, in massive pain and with tremendous nausea going on, trying just to keep my seat and not throw up (not that I could have moved if I'd needed to leave anyhow).... and then I started to feel like I was going to faint. You know, that hot-in-the-face but cold-and-clammy-all-over feeling.... That's when I started to panic. So I was twisting all around, making (probably) the most horrible grimaces, trying to avoid fainting/throwing up and praying for the sermon to end soon... I made it through, but what a nightmare!!

Incidentally, if you want a quick and easy way to make a grown woman cry, try sneezing or throwing up with a newly-injured back. I promise, it'll work! After sneezing once on Friday night, I began a programme of ruthless sneeze-suppression to avoid repeating the experience. Who knew that one used one's back muscles to sneeze? And when the nausea drove me to throwing up on Saturday, I also did my best to suppress that after a few times, as it is excruciatingly painful to one's back.

Thankfully I'm back to walking, and the pain is not debilitating anymore.... Just very painful. I need to get into exercising faithfully as soon as I'm able!

I found myself grateful to God for many things this weekend - small things that have made this experience easier. I was grateful that....

- We did end up having houseguests, as they were so helpful with DS
- That this injury occurred late enough in my pregnancy so that throwing up is not absolutely necessary
- That it occurred early enough for me to recover before the delivery
- That the music on Sunday was easy enough to get through while in massive pain
- That it occurred over a weekend so I could have two days of DH's help
- That our houseguests were delayed for 24 hours so that I could get used to being injured rather than having them show up in the middle of a developing back injury

Many, many things! But regardless, I am SO glad to be through this weekend!

Baby seems to be doing fine... She is very, very active and kicks continually! I love it. We see our midwives in two weeks, and I'm looking forward to that very much. I have to take this week off of my part-time job and our MOMS club activities due to the injury, but I'm looking forward to being back to normal soon.

Have a wonderful week! Love to all.