An Odd Day

Have you ever heard that old expression, “they were working so hard all you could see were a**es and elbows”? I feel like that is what my life is like right now. Mr. Pete is really working at his music store business and this is one of the busiest times of the year because of marching band season and school rental programs. He is never home and when he is home he is very tired. To make matters worse, one of his badly infected toenails came off and the skin around it refuses to heal. It gives him constant pain. The only thing that takes his mind off of it is the plantar fasciitis on the other foot! Oh… and did I mention he is coaching Noah’s soccer team twice a week for practice and then a game every weekend? And to put the cherry on top, his gig as the 6th grade PSR religion teacher started last weekend.

I on the other hand am only homeschooling our 9th grader, 6th grader, 4th grader and 3rd grader and mothering a very single-minded toddler – and an equally single-minded 18 year old! I’m also working at my medical transcription gig about 20 hours a week, cooking, cleaning, and driving kids around.

Lately when Mr. Pete and I wake up, we literally look at each other and say, “Time to make the Donuts.” It’s just nuts.

Now I am intellectually and emotionally able to handle stress, and strain, but my body always betrays me when I am stressed. The day of my wedding I could literally not move my neck to the left or right. I look like a mannequin in our wedding pictures. When I was a middle manager for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, I found myself grinding my teeth nightly. This is my body’s way of saying enough already!

So this morning I woke up, checked for any fires on my other blog (which is also actually a source of lot of stress) transcribed medical reports for about an hour and then got the kids up for their piano lesson. While I was sitting at the piano teacher’s house I noticed that I had an uncomfortable pain in my left hip. By the time the lessons were over, the pain had radiated down the front of my hip and was causing a burning in front of my thigh. I could barely walk out of there. Sitting down again in the car was agony.

When we got home I took some ibuprofen and made lunch and sat down to type some more reports. But by 3:00 I could not lift my left leg without excruciating pain. I took some more ibuprofen, made dinner, fed the kids and then loaded Gabe, Noah and Izzy up to go to the cross country meet. I was literally crying on the way there and I tried to explain to the kids what was going on without upsetting them. When we got to the meet, I discovered that I did not have my folding chair with me, so I had to stand. As time passed however, I noticed that the pain was subsiding. Maybe that ibuprofen was finally kicking in. One of the moms there is a physical therapist. She said I probably had a nerve getting pinched somewhere and she gave me some suggestions and some exercises to try.

By the end of the meet, some two hours later, I was feeling pretty good. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that there was some residual pain left except we the car started choking up and I knew I was going to have to get some gas. Getting out of the car to pump the gas seemed to aggravate things again, although not as bad as before.

I got home, held Rosy and gave her some food, and then it was time for me to drive over to church to pick up Sam from choir practice. The church doors were locked so I had to wait outside, standing again, for practice to give out, which I think also helped my back.

So my day that started at 6:00 was finally over at 9:30. Maybe it was just because it was Thursday, maybe it was because I knew today was going to be a marathon run around with the kids. Whatever it is, I popped two more ibuprofen and I hope my body is more forgiving in the morning.

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