I heart frozen peas!

Does everyone over-react as much as I do?? Last Wednesday I got a sore back. No, not the "I pushed around heavy furniture yesterday and my back is biting me back" kind of sore back. This was a SORE BACK as in yelping out loud at inopportune times because it hurt SO DANGED BAD!

Of course I reacted as anyone would by assuming I had contracted a fatal disease and a large tumor was pressing on my spine and by tomorrow I'd be paralyzed from the waist down and I'd be gone in a month. Yes, that's the way my mind works when something hurts and I don't know why. An injury, I understand. But - what injury? My back just started hurting like gangbusters.

So I have been hobbling around like a 95-year old resident of the nursing home. Swallowed the ibuprofen, applied heat, the whole nine yards. Ralph has begun applying for jobs in foreign countries to get away from all the trauma here.

I finally decided maybe I wasn't going to die after all, but that I'd at least check in with the doc. Come to find out I was supposed to apply cold, not heat. Ok, so I went for the ice business - and oh, oh. That made it hurt. WAY WORSE. Now what?

So, feeling guilty that I was cheating on my doctor, I went back to the heat, only not HOT, just sorta warm to feel soothing. Sort of. But darned if it didn't feel better with a little bit of heat. But I still didn't know what I did to make it hurt so much.

This morning I talked to my friend, Macey (who, by the way, is in denial about using computers but I feel it is my duty to haul her kicking and screaming to Facebook by gosh!). Macey had the exact same back symptoms when she was doing a lot of carrying around of her granddaughter, Chloe a few years back. She reminded me we'd just returned from Long Beach and - when I thought about it - realized that yes, I'd been carrying Gracie - and in particular, putting her to bed for about 10 nights in a row plus a couple of times down for naps. And Ashley reminded me it's not just the picking Gracie up that's a back-killer - it's the bending waaaaaaay over to lay her in her crib. Ok, it's all making sense now. I just had a delayed reaction or something.

So - the photo above? They are my new BFF (all but the pen, which was a touch of "artistry" to demonstrate the heading of today's blog). I've learned that I can stuff a bag of frozen peas into the waistband of my jeans and still navigate (ok, lurch) around the house and be following doctor's orders. And I can warm up in the microwave my little heart pillow with the good-smelling bead things inside and stuff THAT into the waistband of my jeans and walk/lurch around the house smelling something like a Christmas cookie. Kind of a, well...old cookie but whatever. And the warmth from the red felt heart and the good smelling stuff relieves some of the pain.

Of course there is the question of the large bulge protruding from the area of the waistband of my pants, which isn't - technically - anything BIOLOGICALLY speaking, but a new bulge nonetheless.

Hey - I never said getting older would be pretty!