Pain in the Neck...and the shoulder

Sunday while I was sitting in Primary watching the children try to pay attention to their teachers my shoulder started to go numb. Then as the day progressed it started to hurt, and hurt, and hurt even more. Any movement just about had me in tears.

We had my dad and brothers (my sister forgot) up for a late Christmas dinner. I had planned to take pictures, but I was in so much pain I was lucky to just get the table set. But dinner was great. Josh cooked a spiral cut ham with a cranberry relish that I think is to die for. We also had twice baked potatoes (my first time cooking those), Grandma Jone's (she is Josh's great-grandma) corn casserole, which also is to die for, a raspberry-yogurt salad, and rolls. Oh, and the best part, chocolate truffle cheesecake for dessert.

After they left I took a hot shower that helped with the shoulder pain until the water ran cold so then I sat in the recliner with the heating pad which didn't really help at all (funny that's how well the Tylenol was working too). I didn't sleep well that night because I COULD NOT get comfortable on matter which way I tried to lay.

Needless to say, I was a little cranky when I woke up yesterday. I'm not one to rush to the doctor over any little thing, but I called the minute they were open. Lot of good that did me, I couldn't get in until 3:30 and even then I sat in the waiting room for 1 hour AND 10 minutes.

I can't remember what the doctor called it, but apparently I have a nerve that keeps having spasms. I'm ready to cut the nerve out, but instead he gave me a prescription for some pain pills and a steroid 6-day treatment pack.

So I went to the pharmacy where I waited ANOTHER 45 minutes. At one point I thought I was done because the pharmacits called my name. But all he wanted to tell me was that they were out of the pre-packaged pills that told you to take 6 pills the first day, then 5 the next day, all the way down to 1 and instead he wanted to know if it was okay if they just put the pills in a bottle? Sure, whatever, I think I can handle counting backwards from six...

Fifteen minutes later my name was called again. By this point I was so happy to be almost done that I wasn't paying attention when a different pharmacist started to tell me the whole 6, then 5, then 4 deal again. But something clicked when she said Prednisone. Alarms went off in my head, but I couldn't figure out why. I thought she was talking about the prescription for pain at first. Then she indicated that it was the steroid pill; that's when it all clicked.

Prednisone is the most likely reason we can't have children. Presnisone is the reason we are so lucky to adopt. When Josh was 18 he had an auto-immune disease that attached his kidneys. Prednisone is the drug that saved his life. When we told his family we had decided to adopt that is when they finally mentioned that the doctor had mentioned Prednisone could....kill his little swimmers. At the point I wish we had known sooner. I knew that had problems, but we had never thought to make sure it was just me. I think that would have saved a lot of heartache. We could have started on this adoption journey sooner. But maybe we needed to live through those trials of trying to conceive to better appreciate adoption.

I have to admit that I stared at the bottle on my table for quite awhile before I took the pills. I know it is used to treat other things. I had a friend take it during a pregnancy to help her not miscarry. To me that is ironic. Josh takes it, no babies. Girlfriend takes it, here comes baby...

I was a little worried that thinking about the past would stir up old feelings, but I am happy to say there was no tears, well except the painful ones that convinced me to just take the pills.

A quick update
I slept much, much better last night. It must have been the pain pill. We woke up at 2:00 to check the fireplace and it hardly hurt. But I acted to soon and tried to sleep on it, so it hurt again when I woke up. But today that pain has been bearable and almost minimal at times. Oh, and in case you are taking track, I took 6 pills in the first 24 hours (2 at a time at every meal), now I need to take 5 in the next 24 hours, then 4, then 3, then 2, then finally the last one. The pharmacist told me like 20 times, so I want to make sure I get it right!