365 Days with the Carlsons: 7/1/14

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

the weather was nice and warm and i wanted us to get out of the house and the heat in the house, so we headed out to the beach. it was nice and warm, a little bit windy, but all around perfect weather.
the tides were quite high and waves made it dangerous to go out far.
a newport beach lifeguard, ben carlson, drowned yesterday while attempting to rescue a swimmer, actually. =( that'd be around 9-10 mi south of where we were at.

look at the waves crashing in~

my back held up ok. the driving was probably the hardest part for me.

maybe we'll go back again wednesday?!

July 6th, 2014

this is supposed to be a turtle (the design had it in green) but of course, he wanted red.

having the paint over his mouth is hard because it smears when he eats...so i think we'll avoid painting over the mouth area from now on.

July 5th, 2014

still hard to sit for more than 5-10 minutes...

brenny wants more faice painting, so i painted the car on (i think dashiell had a blue on before)

this one wasn't too hard.

July 4th, 2014

woke up feeling better. i could get out of bed without yelping in pain~

mom had to take the boys over to the july 4th celebration, but i followed after about an hour to see if i could make it.

i did, for a short while, but it started to hurt again.

brennan wanted his face painted, so i tried to do my best. it was hard sitting long enough to get that done.

mom said that several moms asked her where the face painting was being done, and she had to tell them it was me that did it. =p

the rides were ok, but they changed the height restrictions on some which put a cap on the height. no fun! the obstacle course, which was one of their favorites, wasn't allowing anybody over 48" =( boo.

July 3rd, 2014

this is the only picture i have from today. i picked up some legos off the floor this morning (7ish?), and as i did it, felt a little pinch in my lower back. i laid down on the bed with my heating pad almost immediately for about 30-45 min. took 3 ibuprofen, too. i felt much better, or so i thought. had to get up to go to the bathroom, and immediately knew i wasn't doing well. it hurt a lot still and hobbled my way to the bathroom.

i almost couldn't get myself up (much less get my undies and shorts back on). i had to hold onto the walls to get up. the pain was so severe i started to lose my vision (and knew that was bad), got really dizzy, and there was a loud buzzing/ringing in my ears. i yelped as i finally got my shorts back on, but couldn't straighten up to walk back to the bed. i half stumbled and fell on to the bed and called for matthew to help me. i clung onto his neck while he pulled me along back to the bathroom to get the muscle relaxers and the vicodin. he got me back to the bed, where i laid down some more.

i debated what to do...will it get better on it's own? could i make it to the hospital on my own? the boys had their cooking class at 10:30; mom had to take them for sure. and matt had practice later on in the afternoon.

i texted pascale and christina to see if they were busy. pascale was out tutoring so i didn't hear from her, but christina said she'd help take me to urgent care. i used heat and ice while waiting, and it was still quite painful. matt helped me get down the stairs--which was not as hard as i had expected it to be. the act of bending was more painful than anything else.

once christina got to the house, i had to find my way to get into the car. that was rough. i screamed a lot while matt helped me around, and i apologized for it, but it hurt like hell. the car ride was rough too, because i was, well, sitting. we made it to kaiser euclid (urgent care) and christina got a wheelchair for me to sit in to get into the building. we waited about 2 hours i think. =( i was going numb from all the pain while sitting. i brought some t-yarn to finish bag that i had started, so that was helpful in passing the time.

christina actually also brought her mom as well (i felt bad for having them sit there with me though) they needed to go to costco which was just 2 blocks away. she stayed with me the entire time, which i was thankful for.

finally got to see a doctor, who prescribed a toradol injection for the pain. she didn't feel it was a problem with my spine, but just the muscle. the toradol didn't do wonders like i had hoped, but it allowed me to straighten up a bit and stay standing for a few moments.

i got another prescription for more prednisone (5 days only) and vicodin and one for a different muscle relaxer (because i never felt the previous one was working). about 4 hours later we left the hospital.

we stopped at costco because she needed to get some things for july 4th; and she also got me a polish dog and drink so that i could take my medicine.

what a long day. got home OK and basically just laid down and rested the whole night...