A short story made long

Over the last weekend, I had been decorating for Christmas and doing some cleaning around the house like a madwoman. For those of you who know me, you know that I am EXTREMELY clean. I sometimes let my house get a little unorganized, but it drives me crazy to not have a clean and organized house. I do not like to clean, but one of my favorite things is to walk into a clean house after a long days work. It is soothing and calming to me. Well every once in a while, I will "overdo it." It seems like the month of November has been "getting the house caught up Month." We re-did our landscaping and by "re-did" I mean we ripped everything out and planted all new plants and then mulched all of it. It was a 3 day LONG process. It looks great now though. The next weekend, I decided to borrow my mom's carpet steamer, and did our dining room, living room, and hallways. This took 9 hours because our dog has had so many accidents. We will eventually be putting in hardwoods throughout the house because even after steaming the floors, not once but twice, he still walked down 30 minutes later to re-mark his territory. I think since he has already marked his scent in the carpets, that only ripping them out will stop him. Ok I'm sure you are wondering why I am telling you about all of our projects. Well Sunday morning, I woke up for church and was about to get into the shower. I couldn't even get out of bed. I felt like someone had take a huge hammer with spikes on it and had beaten my back. I seriously thought that I was passing the 5-6 kidney stones the dr. told me I would eventually pass. I hated to miss church though. I love going on Sundays (even though we are 5 minutes late every week). It starts my week off on the right foot, and I strongly dislike missing. For those of you who do not know, we got to Northride Church in White House. It has become a "retreat" almost for me, and is my favorite place to be besides home. Ok, ok, I'm getting on with the story. I stayed in bed all day on Sunday, and I woke up Monday morning to even worse pain. I went ahead and went to school because my first graders do NOT like having a substitute. My assistant came in at her usual time that morning and took one look at me and said, "you need to go to a doctor, your face is pale white, what is wrong with you." I told her that I was having the worst lower back pain of my entire life. So after some debate, she finally convinced me to let her tell the office that I needed to go home. They immediately got me a sub for 10:30, and I gave the kids hugs and left for the doctor. I went to a walk-in place in White House and she tried to get my insurance to approve a CT. They said it would be 48 hours to get it approved and that I would have to go through the ER to be able to have it covered by my insurance. So, I had my dad pick me up because at this point the pain was so bad that my vision was blurred. They gave me a shot for pain right before I left that did not help at all and told me I could not eat. My dad took me to Baptist. We got there at 1:00pm and did not get to see the doctor until 3:30pm. Whatever shot they gave me in White House had completely worn off though, and I was trying not to throw up everywhere from the pain. I'm just glad that I wasn't having a heart attack because I wouldn't have made it. I finally got to see the doctor, and he gave me a shot of something that I had to sign off on to take. I can see why because it did the trick. I finally had relief. The doctor sent me up for a CT, did bloodwork, and some other tests. He found that I had a herniated disc, inflammation, and a muscle spasm going on with my spine. It is called radiculopathy, which is pain along the path of a nerve or group of nerves. I asked what causes this, and he said that I have either lifted something too heavy (carpet steamer, Christmas tree, etc.) or that sometimes it just happens. He gave me a steroid pack (I had to take 6 today), and pain medication that has helped. I finally was released at about 7 last night and was starving. I had not eaten a bite or had a drink of anything that day. My dad and Rich took me to "5 Guys" which is quite possibly the best burger place that I have ever been to. It literally made all of the waiting worth it. I came straight home, kissed Bentley goodnight and fell asleep within 5 minutes of getting home. Rich woke me up this morning at 5:30 to let me know the best news... Sumner County is closed. Thank you Westmoreland. It is the best feeling in the world to wake up and not have to go to work, but know that you are still getting paid for laying in bed. I slept all morning and got caught up on my shows that I had on DVR. Rich brought me soup so that I could take my meds for lunch and worked from home today so that I wouldn't have to move. I am starting to feel better, but the pain medication does make me a little sick to my stomach. I am not used to taking anything except for pre-natal vitamins. So there it is a very short story that has been made VERY long.