'Tis the Season to be a Hot Mess And a Rant For FREE

Guess who got prescribed a muscle relaxer?

This girl did.

I've been faithfully attending physical therapy three times a week for a neck, shoulder, and upper back pain. The pain started as stiffness in my neck towards the end of October and morphed into a pretty impressive headache (not in intensity, but in longevity), and by the end of November I couldn't tilt my head back to wash my hair, and looked like I was doing the Robot whenever I was asked to look sideways.

I knew I needed some sort of physical therapy when my self-treatment (a.k.a. Googling videos of people stretching themselves out and doing massage with tennis balls) proved ineffective, but first I needed a referral from my Primary Care Physician because that extra appointment scheduled two weeks out doesn't waste time at all.

After all we went through with Brian's PCP, may I take a moment to love on my PCP? She is amazing. First, her name is Carol King, which is pretty sweet. Second, her husband is an Ironman, so she is well versed in the sport of triathlon. When I went to her and said, "I can't do any of my normal activities," meaning swim, bike, and run, she knew that was kinda sorta a big deal for me. The first thing she did was tell me to take more drugs if I was comfortable doing that (twist my arm), and then she referred me to a physical therapist.

The drugs are awesome. The Ibuprofen is dealing with the pain and inflammation, and the muscle relaxers are making me sleep um, very relaxing.

The hardest part of physical therapy is finding child care so I can go. I've been trying to schedule as many sessions as possible during Ezra's school, but I still have to take the three girlies with me. One day when I had Ezra all day, Stacy down the street took my littles, and a friend from church is watching all of the kiddos during my Friday sessions. (Those sessions are longer because they include massage therapy.)(Like, it's been medically prescribed for me to get a massage once a week.)(Yep, if it wasn't for the knowledge that I'm dealing with constant pain, I'd hate me too.)

I've only been seen a little over a week, but I have faith it's helping. My therapist told me she needs a jackhammer to loosen up my trapezius muscle, but she's been making do with her bare hands because she is a beast.

In other news, I'm a little miffed at Facebook. Roughly half of my blog page views come from people who have personally chosen to follow me on Facebook with the sole purpose of getting updates when I post them. Facebook is now charging fan pages to show their updates to everyone who follows them, resulting in a 60% decline in my Facebook blog traffic. (Because I math-ed that mess, y'all.)(That's how you know it's a serious issue for me - the occurrence of voluntary ciphering.)

You know what? I'm a stay at home mom with four kids. One of my kiddos is in (really expensive) therapy. Another takes (really expensive) medication. I have this teeny-tiny blog as a means of preserving my own sanity in this season of life, as well as carving out a space in this world to capture the craziness of raising my children. All so I can remember it and be thankful when I'm old. I really can't afford to spend money on a recreational blog.

But blogging does take time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time. And especially because I'm teeny-tiny in size I treasure every person who takes time out of their day to read whatever drivel I'm peddling. If they have signed up to read it, all the better; I treasure these people because it's like a promise they will be returning. But when Facebook won't let me post to everyone unless I pay at least $5 each and every time, well, that's some buh-loney right there.

In conclusion, I have no idea yet what to do about this. But I needed to rant, so thank you. Have a lovely day, and, if you read this from Facebook, throw me a "like" or a comment to let me know you are among the treasured few. Please and thank you.