well folks, it is official. i have a slipped disk or a perforated disk or something like that. good news i guess, since it means the back pain i have been haing for the last 3 months wasn't all in my head. let me replay for you what happened...
end of june: i bent over to feed my cat and WHAM! the pain hit and i had to fall over on the floor. spent a week in bed (luckily at a PC training so i was staying somewhere nice) and took lots of meds.
beginning of july: back at site only a couple days and it happens again. i have to spend a long weekend in bed with only my cat to take care of me. again, meds saved me.
last weekend (durban): my friend and i went to have a fun weekend away and of course, as is my lcuk, it happnes again. we are at a mall and the pain just sneaks up on me until i have to go and lie down in a bathroom. could hardly move the rest of that day and the next day i decided to taking sleeping pills in order to handle the 3 hour taxi ride home. it was horrible!
so after the third 'incident' i was told to venture up to pretoria to see a doctor about this little probelm. yesterday i saw that doctor and had a mri done, only to find out that one of my disks in my lower back no longer lines up with the rest of my disks. he is a troublemaker. he is also black and the rest are white. so VOLIA, there is where the pain is coming from. now what...?
doctor said no to surgery, at least not yet. i still have control of my bladder and my legs so surgery isn't needed and hopefully never will be. basically, i have to take meds and go to physical therapy for at least 6 weeks. the disk will eventually pop back into place as long as i am careful and i do my pt.
so here i am, with a back that doesn't work and a lot of pain. i am not sure what caused it but i think it is how i carry my buckets of water and how i do my laundry. since i don't really have any other options on how i do these things, i am not sure how i am going to change this, but who knows, i am sure something will work itself out.
personally, i think my body is telling me it doesn't like living in a hut. that's ok though, cause my mind is telling me the same thing. heather=not peace corps material
in other fun news, a canadian couple are coming next week to volunteer at my org for 3 months and the husband is an IT spcialist. he is going to help me get computer classes up and running at my office, and since i am in the process of getting another computer lab put into a community center, he will help teach classes there too. i never thought that i would be doing anything IT related, seeing as how back home my brother and my dad are the computer gurus (dad works at IBM, brother is studying computer software engineering). but here i am, the computer expert at my work, who everyone comes to for help. i guess some of the knowledge my dad and brother have rubbed off on me. who would have thought- heather, an it person in africa. so much for hiv/aids.
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2 comments:
sas! i am so sorry about your back. while i'm sure mine is not nearly as bad, i had upper/middle back issues this summer from hunching over a microscope for 40 hrs/wk. so i feel your pain, because it was really awful and prevented me from doing ANYTHING or ever feeling good. :( so i hope the meds and therapy work, and i promise i am going to write you a letter soon!
LOVE,
julie
heather I am a former rpcv from lesotho and I have enjoyed reading your blog. I believe you should hire someone in the community to get your water for you. I remember when I was in Lesotho we Peace Corps volunteers did this all the time. For a nominal fee, women or girls in the community would fetch water for volunteers. Not sure how realistic this is but it will help you to preserve your back. If possible, you could even request Peace Corps to help negotiate this for you as they are ultimately responsible for your health.
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