Monday

6 weeks post-op

The bad news is I'm still having pain every day. It's mild - some days I don't even take any pain medication. But, it's still there. I called last week to tell the neurosurgeon and talked to the nurse. I gave her the run down and even told her my theory that the disc below where I had surgery is now bulged/herniated and sitting on my sciatic nerve. She didn't think that was the case and said "I'm not really concerned about this pain. It sounds pretty normal." She told me to take it easy, with no lifting, bending or twisting.

How does someone live without lifting, bending or twisting? I can live by the no lifting rule, for the most part. I really am trying not to lift anything, but without my husband constantly at my side, I'm not sure how I would do it. What if I were a single parent? How would the baby get in bed, take a bath or eat in his high chair? I don't even want to think about it. I was just unloading the dishwasher and thinking about how I was currently breaking two of the rules. I was bending and twisting (and lifting if you count a plate as heavy) to get dishes out and put them away.

The really depressing thing is how unbelievably out of shape and inflexible I'm becoming. I feel like such a slug with zero muscle and I am so far gone from the pre-pregnant yoga flexibility I had built up. I mean, I can barely sit Indian-style these days. I can't wait to get the okay to at least stretch/do some pilates. I'm not even allowed to start physical therapy for surgery until after I see the neurosurgeon again - Nov. 1.

Until then, we wait.

Friday

We finally ferber-ed

For probably three months, our son was a great sleeper. He went to bed at 9ish and woke up at 7ish. For the past few weeks, he still goes to bed at 9, but wakes up at least once between 1-3 and gets a bottle. We thought we weren't feeding him enough, so instead of 6oz before bed, we upped it to 8 then 10.

We've been talking about what to do about this for a while now, and tried to let him cry it out a weekends ago, but he cried for a hour or more, and I couldn't take it. He didn't calm down when we went in to comfort (every 15 min) so I thought something else might be wrong. I think it was teeth that night.

So tonight, we attempted it again. He walked around his crib, screaming for about 30 minutes, but then I just sat in there with him and let him hold my hand and he went straight to sleep after maybe 10 minutes of me sitting there. From what I've read online, he's a little older than most babies when they are "ferbered" so we might need to ease into it. I am happy to give him a hand to hold for a few nights if he will quit waking up in the middle of the night expecting a bottle.

Wednesday

4 weeks post-op

This week has not been good as far as my back is concerned. I think it started Saturday morning. I walked around my neighborhood checking out all of the garage sales, and carried around some toys and clothes. Nothing heavy, but I was hurting a bit when I got home. The rest of Saturday and Sunday were pretty standard - house work and baby time. I don't know if I over-did it playing with the baby on Sunday? I woke up Monday morning pretty stiff and having a little bit more pain. It increases as the day goes on so I worked from home Wednesday.

It's feeling better, but I'm still concerned that something might be wrong. If I walk around too much it gets irritated again and I have to lay down for a while. I have a little nerve/leg pain, but most of the pain seems to be on my spine (feels like my tailbone hurts). I go see my surgeon Nov. 1 so I'm trying to wait until then. I know he only has office hours on Thursday anyway, so I might call over there tomorrow to see if he can squeeze me in.