How I turned a 3 day vacation into an additional week off of work
Okay, it wasn’t on purpose! We took the family to The Wilderness Waterpark in Wisconsin Dells, WI for 3 days of fun. This was made possible by a wonderfully generous Christmas gift from Tracy’s folks. So we packed up and went and had a great time. I can’t tell you how many steps I climbed to get on these tube rides; some 3 or 4 stories high.
We managed to squeak another $50 into our budget buy taking a timeshare tour on our second day. Basically had to listen and say no at the end and the kids got 40 tokens for the arcade and we got $50 in Wilderness Cash to spend. That took care of a second night out to eat.
We had a blast. You can check out some of our photos if you want to see the amount of fun we had.
But then we return home. I thought for sure I’d be sore from all the activity of climbing, walking and swimming, but I felt nothing for two days after we got home. Then Friday came and I noticed a little twinge in my back. No biggie, I’ll just stretch a few times throughout the day and that should take care of it. Well, Saturday rolls around and my back has another idea for me. Now the pain is worse then Friday and now it’s shooting down my right leg.
I immediately get on the phone and call the chiropractor to get in and head this off. My normal Dr. isn’t in, but I had to go. He gets me in, rubs my back a bit, adjusts my hips and then tries to adjust (a.k.a. “crack my back”) on my side (which didn’t happen cause I was too tight) and I felt okay. I went home and my pain got worse. I can barely walk on my right leg, I have no power in my calf muscle (can’t lift myself up on my toes). Pain.
Tracy called my family doctor and got some prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and pain pills, which helped. I’m now stuck in bed.
I emailed my boss at work and said I’m not coming in Monday and will let him know after I see my chiropractor again. Monday came and I went in to see the Dr. who immediately knew what was up ’cause I seem to do this every year. So she stretched me out, and then we did some electro-therapy. She said no work till next week. I can work from home so I can at least keep up with what’s going on. We also have two or three more appointments this week. Hopefully that’s all I need to get back up and going again.
I just hate it when this happens. I feel bad for Tracy for having to take care of me. I hate having to pay medical bills. I hate having to ask off of work. It just sucks.
But that’s how I managed to make a three day vacation into an additional week off of work.
March 15th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Glad you had fun.
Man, that sucks about your back. I had a similar occurrence after a snowboarding trip years ago that involved a lot of falling on my part. I was ok for a few days afterward, but then my lower back slowly began to tighten up until I couldn’t bend at the waist. Very painful.
I saw a chiropractor on the recommendation of a coworker, did several sessions of adjustments and the electro-therapy pads on my back. I stopped the chiropractor because I could feel that the adjustments were increasing my pain. He did give me a velcro-adjustable back support belt to wear and that helped. Time and trying my best to stay mobile and walk around to warm up and stretch things out eventually took care of it.
Good luck. It will get better.