The “Big” Sleep

I slept last night! It wasn’t exactly well or pretty, pain-free or enough, but there was actual sleep.

I fell asleep quickly sometime around midnight and was able to sleep on my side without immediate pain. Around 5:00 the pain woke me up and changing positions only resulted in more pain, so I got out of bed and moved to the living room. I tried reclining with an ice pack, but the pain was too intense to stay in that position. Standing would bring about an immediate decrease in pain; however, there is a significant amount of numbness in my left foot. The intensity of the numbness fluctuates but is always present, which makes standing and walking feel weird even though my butt feels better for it.

Some pain relief was achieved by laying on the floor with my left leg pretzeled over the right leg again, and this time I was also able to sleep in that position until roughly 7:00, with a couple of brief standing breaks when my legs needed a change. At 7, after a bit more standing and walking, I crawled back into my bed with the hope that I could maybe get a bit more sleep. I laid on my side and felt the stirrings of pain, but it stayed moderate enough to allow me another hour of sleep before going full blown again.

As I type I am reclining with an ice pack under my butt…and I’m squirming more than a toddler in church. My ability to lie down in any position comes with an unpredictable time limit. When the buzzer goes, the pain flashes into white hot flames until I stand up. I need to stand up. Right now!

The Morning After

I did not sleep last night. Well, I might have had a grand total of an hour of sleep, but the rest of the night was basically torture. Over the years I have had my share of pain, from running, from the disc issue, the SI joints, shoulders, neck, knees, muscles, gallstones, childbirth, stitches, burns, boxes falling on my head. All of those things hurt in varying degrees, but I have never lost an entire night’s sleep to any of those things. Until now.

Although the disc and SI joint are likely abettors in this case, I would say, in my complete lack of medical knowledge, that the actual culprit is the sciatic nerve running down my left leg. Aside from a bit of stiffness and mild ache, my back actually feels pretty good considering the weights that I pulled yesterday. I am used to having a throbbing back for a day or two after a competition, but I’m not feeling that at all this time. No, all of the pain is centered deep in my left butt cheek and radiates down the leg a ways. Sitting is absolutely out of the question except for those situations in which sitting is my only option, like using a toilet or driving in the car. To sit is to feel instant and intense pain. And as I discovered last night, laying down is also problematic! There is not a single position in which I can sleep without intense, throbbing pain that I couldn’t sleep through if I tried. I tried. All night long.

I left my bed shortly after 1:00 AM, because it hurt too much to remain there and I didn’t want to disturb my husband’s sleep. In the living room, I tried everything. My anti-grav recliner. The floor. Ice. Heat. More Ibuprofen. A lacrosse ball. Stretching. Standing for a while. Every possible position on the floor. The only position that provided a small stretch of quasi-relief was to be flat on my back with my right knee bent, so that I could open up my left hip and rest my left foot across my right thigh. Apparently that’s a great stretch for the piriformis, which could also be a contributing factor. The position lessened the pain enough that I could almost fall asleep…until one of my legs would suddenly realize how long it had been in such an uncomfortable position and would require movement. Unfortunately, returning the left leg to the floor resulted in an instant flare of intense pain. For the entire night, I had two options, the piriformis stretch pose or standing, and neither option afforded the ability to actually sleep.

Honestly, I don’t know what I will do if I cannot sleep tonight. I do have to work tomorrow night, and I’ve essentially been awake since 5:00 yesterday morning. A nap would be wonderful right about now, but I suspect that the pain will make that impossible.