well, how was this weekend for me... well, this post probably will be painful to read, so stop here if you don't want to hear it.



in short...a combination of excruciating and miserable. what my injury is turning out to be is a herniated disc. old people between 40-55 usually get it, but i you can always have a freak accident now and then, which is what happened to me. and it's a 6 month recovery process for old people...but i'm young, and otherwise in good health so it should be much shorter. probably for a full recovery, it's more like weeks than months. i think its not a serious case where it needs surgery (thank goodness for that), but still it's been one of the thoughest physical injuries i had to deal with so far. it makes me wonder, how do people cope with chronic pain/fatigue all for all that time? so i should be happy that i still have all my limbs, and i will recover from this eventually. and with everyone with colds and flu's quit yer whining.



so with that, here are the list of events since friday. i took off early to try some acupuncture. and i have to say it was more of a negative experience from a good one. i'm not sure what the needles and the electrodes did to me, but it felt like at least my right leg had ran the marathon + with all the pain i was currently having. i got back in my car, and tossed and turned in the car with pain and agony for about a good 45 minutes before i could drive home. contemplating if i should just call one of my friends to pick me up the whole time. needing to stop by the market, it was a miracle that ray was still at work late on friday. so i got him to pick me up 3 things that will help with the inflamation. OJ (vitamin C), Epson (aka Epsom) salt, and bengay. on a side note here are some non natural remedies fto cure inflamation.

-vitamin C

-hot bath with Epsom salt.

-bengay

-omega 3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish, almonds, olive oil)

-avoid any dairy products including meat, lactose (milk)

-avoid spicey foods



so friday evening i was fatigued from the pain...popping double the amount of advil than it was recommended in 24 hours.....woke up saturday with a little OD'd from advil (numb feeling on the tips of my lips and tongue). saturday was all about reducing my intake of advil, lying in bed sweating from the pain and fatigue from whatever the acupuncture did the day before. in contrast, it was an excellent day for downloading CSI from winmx. i got a good number of shows, and i watched about 7 episodes of CSI and 7 episodes of 24 that i haven't seen before. so at least i had that. towards the evening, i came to the realization that i should do some reasearch on herniated discs, and i found this website that had illustrations on how to do exercises for herniated discs, and those simple exercises have been providing me more progress and pain relief than all the spine adjustments (chiropractor), acupuncture, and medicine combined.



sunday, i realized that if i can just do those exercises i had found, i could actually walk around somewhat normal....so i decided to my laundry that has been piling up for more than 2 weeks. and damn, that damn near killed me. but i had to do it. after that, i was absolutely wiped out and passed out for a good few hours. and woke up feeling like i had made some progress...i might have just been imagining it, but it felt like the internal injuries were in the stages of healing. then i got a call from erik around 7pm, and troubleshot a exchange server problem at work from home. nguyen joined me at 9pm, and we finished up at about 2am. that's 5 hours of padding for my slowness coming to work for this week.



today i was in the shower, and i realized that if i just tightened my stomach and back muscles while i'm standing, i can stand semi comfortably, which is a big improvement. but driving to work was excruciating..even though it was a 10 minute drive at most. and then i sneezed at work, and now some of the pain that was gone is back....sigh......