katakat.com bytes from a participant observer

So I didn't feel well on Thursday night, and I woke up Friday morning with low back pain. I was popping ibuprofen like candy. The discomfort got so bad I slept on the couch Saturday night, just so I could roll off onto the floor to get up. It wasn't so much the pain as the spasms; I couldn't even sit up, let alone stand. Moving around my kitchen involved holding on to the kitchen counters and any available handle. It was like the top part of my body was balanced on Jell-O. It took me several minutes to stand up Sunday morning from a kneeling position off the floor. I called the Kaiser appointment line early Sunday morning and got in to see a doctor at 9:20 a.m. I didn't realize they worked on Sundays! The doc prescribed what later turned out to be a bag full of meds, including painkillers and a muscle relaxer. I took them when I got home and slept for at least 5 hours. So much for Sunday. I'm back on the ibuprofen now, since the painkillers gave me a headache and didn't let me think straight. Hard to study when you can't sit still or concentrate for more than a few minutes. I'm still "doing the Macarena" (to quote a friend) to get up from a sitting position (hands on knees, working up to hips...). But at least the pain is going away. Now I just feel unbalanced.