the misseldines

Back when I was still young (I'm turning 30 this year! GASP!) okay, like really really young. Elementary School age. I was outside one crisp Fall day raking leaves all by myself. I remember it so vividly. I wanted to surprise my dad by raking up the leaves all by myself and so I was working really hard to get it all raked up before he looked out the window and saw. I was using a garden rake, because we didn't know there was a difference back then. The tines or whatever you call them kept getting stuck in the ground.

I was breathing pretty hard, and then it hit. My shoulder went into spasms and I fell to the ground. It hurt bad. I was seeing stars and I may have blacked out. Can't really remember that part very well. I lay on the ground for a few minutes until it all stopped. Then I got back up and thought to myself "that was weird".

I kept on raking. A few more minutes into it I fell to the ground in pain again. It was even worse than before. It hurt so bad. I remember praying to God that it would stop and I would be okay.

After it stopped I remember feeling scared. The pain was in my left shoulder. I was young. I thought maybe I had a heart attack or something.

I decided the best thing to do was to stop raking (DUH!) and go inside and lie down. I went in and found everyone gathered in front of the TV watching Full House or some other awesome show that was popular back then. I lay on the couch and pretended like nothing had happened. No one had missed me. No one needed to know. No one needed to worry about me.

I NEVER TOLD ANYONE

In the years since then, I have had shoulder spasms more and more frequently. They go through spurts. Some years they happen more than others. After my spasms, my shoulder muscles are really sore, tired and tender for about two weeks after. And the chance for a recurrence seems pretty high.

It stupidly never occurred to me that I should tell someone. That maybe someone could help me. I'll admit, I'm not the brightest bulb in the bunch.

So the reason I am thinking about this now is because I had a recurrence this week. It woke me straight up from a dead sleep at 3:00 in the morning and happened off and on all night long. I've had little ones almost every day since.

I've been thinking about how stupid I am to have had to deal with this for so long. Maybe if I would have said something we could have seen a doctor and I would be fixed now.

The moral of the story? Don't be stupid!

Oh yeah, I have to wait until MARCH to see a doctor. What's a few months when I've already waited a lifetime.