Forced Vacation

I was having a pretty nice weekend. On Friday night I saw the high school play with my daughter and her friend. On Saturday I did some quilting. I loaded my blue and white nine patch on the machine and got it mostly quilted. I was accomplishing things. On Sunday morning, the girls and I went to church. We stopped at the store on the way home. I had a full day of quilting planned...I was going to finish quilting the nine patch and get the binding on. Was going to run the vacuum so I wouldn't have to do it on Monday. The best laid plans...

After church I decided to get comfy...flannel pants, a turtleneck and a sweatshirt. I went into my closet, bent over to get my pants off the shelf, and I heard it. Two very loud pops in my lower back. And I felt it...the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life. I dropped to my knees, made it over to the bed and stayed on the floor for a lifetime...or about 20 minutes. I couldn't move. I was lightheaded. It was awful. I managed to change my clothes while I was on the floor, then I crawled down the hallway and scooted down the stairs on my bottom. The pain was tremendous. Holding onto walls, railings and furniture I made it to the sofa and tried to get comfortable, all the while trying not to cry. My daughter wanted to take me to the emergency room, but I was afraid they'd admit me. Since my husband is in Frankfurt for the rest of the week, I didn't want to have to call him and tell him I was in the hospital!

I called the doctor and he told me to take two of the 500mg Naproxen tablets that I have for my migraines. If that didn't help, he said I should go to the ER. It did help some, along with the heating pad, although I still couldn't stand or walk. I found my Vicodin and managed to get through the night.

Yesterday morning I called the doctor. The recording said the office opened at noon. I managed to make it until noon and called again. The recording said they were out to lunch until 1. I called again and managed to get an appointment. The results? One was that the recording was wrong and they were really open at 8:30! Second was I most likely have herniated two disks in my back. I am out of work at least until next Tuesday. I am on lots of happy drugs. :o) I can walk again, albeit painfully. But I will survive. And I have to stay on the sofa with my heating pad as much as possible. So that means...

I've had time to knit the adorable little baby hat you see here. I saw these on Suze's blog, The Thread and I and she was kind enough to share the pattern with me. They work up quickly and are so cute! I plan to make a few and donate them to our church's "Caps and Laps" group which makes baby hats for the local hospital and lap robes for senior citizens. When I finished the hat, I started working on my newest pair of socks.

This morning I started cutting away the batting on my trapunto. It is a tedious job. I worked on it until the Percoset kicked in...then I stopped. I didn't want to cut the quilt top! Although I can't work at the longarm right now, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to stand up straighter by the end of the week and I can finish the nine patch. The good news is that one of the most comfortable chairs in the house is my sewing chair...it's cushy with lots of support. On Saturday night I cut out a new quilt, so I should be able to get some piecing done too. I'm doing my best to turn this into an opportunity to get something accomplished. I'll keep you posted!