This last weekend was a very eventful one. My wonderful
sister-in-law and niece threw me a Baby Shower (my room is currently stacked high
with gifts) and yesterday was my mother-in-law’s birthday party. It was so
wonderful to see and spend time with a number of people on that side of the
family. However, regrettably, there were consequences to my activity level…
Specific to CP
I’ve known for the last few weeks that the weight from my
pregnancy has been causing an undesirable level of pressure on my knees and
ankles. Up until this weekend, though, I was able to avoid focusing on the discomfort
that it was giving me.
Last night I went to bed in a moderate amount of pain. I
tossed and turned for an hour or so before finally being able to fall asleep. At
about 2:45am I woke up in severe lower body muscular-skeletal pain. I
desperately needed to go to the bathroom but it took me 30 minutes to get the
bathroom, even though it was only a few feet away. Once I was back, I tried to lie
down again but the least painful position I could find was sitting on the edge
of my bed staring out my window.
I thought and I thought about the mistakes I
had made that weekend. The biggest issue, I think were the stairs I had climbed.
I tried to think of a solution for the pain but couldn’t think of one. Tylenol
is great for breaking a fever but not for taking away pain—I just have to high
a tolerance to pain killers, I’ve gone essentially pain medication free
since I was a teenager. In my desperation I thought of waking my husband, but
the poor man isn’t getting much sleep any more, he is just too busy.
After about an hour my fruitless solution seeking, I did
something I hadn’t done in nearly 16 years, I cried due to Cerebral Palsy pain.
Of course I have cried several times in the last 16 years for other types of reasons,
but CP pain wasn’t one of them (I'm "tough"). My crying turned in to all out weeping and that
woke up my husband. He took me in his arms and somehow even though he didn’t
take away the severity of my pain, he was able to push it into the background
and we were able to fall back to sleep.
