You've hit a nerve.

"You’ve hit a nerve"

Usually when you hear that comment, you know that you have touched someone’s feelings a little too much. You have hit them in a spot a little too tender, basically, a place that hurts.

Imagine now that the discs in your spine are not discs, but individual vanilla slices, all stacked perfectly upon each other. They move perfectly to allow you freedom to move. Beside these scrummy yummy treats lies a nerve that runs from the top to the bottom and affects your entire body, keeping you physically well, allowing you to bend, sit, run, crawl.

When two of those precious vanilla slices get squeezed and the fluffy yellow custard spurts out the end of them they hit the nerve and things go down hill, fast.

The herniated, burst vanilla slices now have big bulgy globs hanging out of them and every time you move they hit that nerve. If you bend to pick up your baby it hurts, if you try to get something into or out of the dishwasher, it hurts. If you sit in the car for too long, it goes stiff and spasms and you can barely get out. You can’t lie on your back to sleep, or your front, you cocoon yourself in pillows to support every bit of your back that is possible. You start to live with constant pins and needles in your leg and foot.

You start on the nurofen and voltaren and before you know it you are taking about 24 a day to cope with the pain and to manage to look after a newborn and a toddler.

The physio doesn’t help much.

The doctor sends you to the neuro surgeon, and the MRI confirms the lumps are big, but thankfully not cancer. That is the very good news. The bad news is she recommends you do nothing to aggravate the nerve, do not attempt running, or swimming – the kicking motion annoys the lower discs and keeps hitting the nerve.

Your best option is surgery. Then rehab for ten days and then about two months of rest….mmm have I mentioned new baby and small child to look after?

And so it is that I ventured to a new physio and one very small stretch at a time, I have moved from barely able to bend to being pain free. It has taken 19 months. I still can’t run or swim or move very quickly. But I can walk and I have learnt some exercises to keep me in this place as much as possible.

So now, here I am painfree, but not lard free. When I finished breastfeeding I kept up the same calorie intake. Pushing the double pram is not good for my back; the weight of it causes stress on my spine. So I can’t do that.

When I am walking I can’t take big long strides because the herniated discs are low and get annoyed with me. So I didn’t do that.

I can’t do any high impact classes, running or swimming. So, I didn’t do that either.

I have every excuse possible not to exercise. I know, because I make them up for myself every day.

But the muffin top is not so funny anymore. The few clothes that suit me I don’t really like. I see photos of myself and I really don’t like what I see.

So I am trying to make some new choices.

I am drinking more water. I am not buying chocolate biscuits for the household. We are eating more salad and I am using the extra light from day light savings time to go for a walk on my own a few times a week. I have to walk slowly, but I can still walk for 30 minutes.

I need to lose about 8 kilos. In my head I think “that isn’t much, just go and do it”.

And so I shall.



 
 
 
P.S. That image is from an entire blog dedicated to vanilla slices. If you are a boombah who loves vanilla slice, don't go there, but if you are searching for snot block heaven it might be for you.