Sheila is Couch-bound

Sheila did too much lifting and playing with a toddler on Saturday and has had serious back problems since then.  Actually, her back has gotten worse with each passing day since Saturday.  This morning was the worst it has ever been.

I came out of the bedroom at 6:30 this morning to find Sheila lying on the living room floor in the dark.  If she hadn't spoken up in the dark to warn me that she was on the floor, I would have tripped over her, landed on her, and likely made her condition even worse.  That certainly wouldn't have helped either one of us!

Apparently, she had previously made it to the bathroom, in pain, but trying to sit on the toilet put her back into an intensely painful spasm.  She managed to slowly, over the course of the next half hour, crawl her way back to the living room where I found her.

At this point, Sheila couldn't get to the bathroom nor anywhere else.  When I helped her to carefully and excruciatingly make her way back to the bathroom, just sitting down caused another acute back spasm which also kept her from being able to relieve herself.  I attempted to help in getting her to the bathroom twice over the next hour and still no joy.  At this point, it was either call 911 or wait another half hour or so to contact her doctor.  

In the meantime, I got things ready in case EMTs needed to take Sheila to the hospital.  I would follow in the car with whatever we might need at the hospital.  We've been down this road before for other emergency reasons so I knew what needed to be done before the EMTs arrived.  

Fortunately, it turns out that Sheila was in contact with her primary care doctor shortly after 8am.  The plan was to pick up a prescription muscle relaxer at our pharmacy...  alternate between applying ice and applying heat, take Tylenol and Aleve, and take the muscle relaxer up to six pills a day.  By 10:30am, I was back from the pharmacy with some food and the much needed muscle relaxer.  (The prescription wasn't ready for pick-up until around 10am so the long delay was not on me.)

By 11:10am, Sheila was able to make it to the bathroom...  still painfully, slowly and gingerly...  but she was able to relieve herself this time, finally.  

By noon, she was feeling a bit more stable but still couldn't do anything at all.  We just kept rotating between heat and ice...  and monitoring the pain.

By this evening, she seems to be pain-free if she does absolutely nothing and if positioned well on the couch.  Any movement at all is clearly painful which is abundantly evident by the moans, groans and screeches emanating from her.  She's been using my cane all day.  I think a walker might have been more useful though.  That being said, the cane is certainly better than no cane.  

It has been four days of pain for her and each morning was progressively worse than the previous morning.  This morning was just a hair short of calling 911 for help from EMTs and an emergency room.  

Hopefully this will pass quickly.  I suspect tomorrow will only be mildly better than today and I know she needs to take it very easy to avoid another back spasm.  Maybe she can start stretching on the following day.  Hopefully she can get in to see her oncology acupuncturist as soon as possible too.  That should help significantly.  

There isn't much I can do other than get her anything she needs...  ie, water, food, medications, ice, heating pad, pillows, blankets, more medications.  I certainly couldn't get her up off the floor this morning and I was definitely thinking I would need the help of EMTs.

EDIT:  Sheila now has an oncology acupuncture appoint on Monday so that is good.

EDIT - Thursday night - 20 October 2022:  Today was a bit better for Sheila.  She was still on the couch all day alternating between heat and ice while still taking the muscle relaxer, Aleve and Tylenol.  She was able to use the bathroom on her own and even showered on her own so today was a better day than yesterday.  She is still in significant pain and she must be very, very careful in what she does and how she moves.  The muscle relaxers are helping to relieve this acute but long duration back spasm.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring another improvement...

EDIT:  Sunday - 23 October 2022:  Sheila is now doing some very light yoga stretches.  The muscles in her lower back are still tight though and, if she isn't very careful, she gets twinges of pain.  

Yesterday, she did some training for work while sitting in the sun in the yard.  She found that sitting in our outdoor zero-gravity chairs are the most comfortable for her.  

She has not taken any of her muscle relaxers in the past couple of days.  Tomorrow she intends to head back to work mostly because she has an oncology acupuncture appointment in Montpelier anyway.  The acupuncture session should put an end to this bout of back spasms...  hopefully.  Well...  realistically, she might need a few acupuncture sessions.  

On the positive side, Sheila's back is slowly improving.

EDIT - 1 November 2022:  Sheila is still moving around slowly and carefully.  Her back is still sensitive and vulnerable to another back spasm and I can clearly see that she still gets sudden twinges if she isn't very careful.  She's seeing her oncology acupuncturist twice a week now and doing some light stretching and light yoga most days.  She is slowly recovering but still not close to her usual self.