26 December 2010

Christmas Day at Casa de Thumper was nice and quiet; the Spouse Thingy had to work Christmas Eve night into Christmas morning and he slept until 1:15, getting up earlier than normal, and the Boy came over around 1:30. He made pizza for all, and we watched a little Doctor Who (because I am woefully behind on on it, and they don't mind seeing repeats), opened gifts, just had a nice, quiet time.

My day was probably quieter than normal...because I can barely move. The shoulder and chest are improving; on a scale from 1 - 10, with the post-Skki-wipeout pain having been around 8.5, it's down to a tolerable 5. Things on that front are healing nicely. In fact, the recovery is so steady that I don't think it will take nearly as long as the doc warned it could be. Motrin was handling the pain, and I was fully mobile.

"Was" being the key word here.

(Fair warning...copious whining follows.)

My lower back started to ache on Wednesday evening. I didn't think much of it; I have arthritis at L4 and L5, and some aching comes along with that. It aches 90% of the time, and a little Naprosyn makes the worst of it usually abate.

Thursday morning it hurt a little more, but not too badly. Thursday night...someone stabbed me in the back with a red hot poker. I started to get up from the sofa and there was instant fire. And Buddah, the little shit, took the opportunity to jump up onto my back since I couldn't stand upright; I tried to reach back to get him, but he flattened himself like a pancake, and I wound up shuffling down the hall, bent over, with him riding me the entire way. He only jumped down when I went into the bathroom and turned on the water.

I'm pretty sure he was laughing at me.

That was a Vicodin kind of night.

Friday. Holy Carp. There was a lot of moaning and groaning coming out of me, enough that the cats probably got fed up. I know I got fed up. Moving was becoming a rapidly increasing exercise in agony, and when Santa needed to fill the stockings....well, Santa finally said "Phck it," dumped everything on the sofa, shuffled slowly down the hall, took 2 Vicodin, and went to bed.

Christmas Day, the back was still not cooperating. I did well to get from the sofa to a chair in the other room, and then back again later. If not for being served, I'm not sure I would have eaten much at all yesterday, because getting into the kitchen was a literal pain in the ass as whatever muscle in my lower back has decided to clench angrily sent fiery fingers up my back and down into my glutes.

Seriously, I don't think my back has ever been this bad. I really need some new swear words to use when get up, because I'm running out of old ones.

It was a 2 Vicodin night last night, too. It's not doing a damned thing for the pain, but it helped with sleep.

Today...no better, and the weird spot on my chest feels like something ripped again. So I'll spend my day sitting here, not doing much at all. I'm only getting up to pee and to take Motrin and/or Naprosyn. If the bathroom were more comfortable, I think I'd just stay in there so that I wouldn't have to get up at all.

How I know it hurts and I'm not just enjoying the whining: getting my gallbladder out hurt far less, and getting the brain tumor removed was only slightly more painful. Seriously.

Still...Christmas was very nice. It was nice to just sit here with the Boy and the Spouse Thingy, and even the cats were semi-social. I swear, they both acted like they knew what day it was and that they had to be good, because there was shrimp in the fridge, and bad kitties don't get shrimp...

The kitties, being good...