My pain level, when I would go to doctors and they asked me from a 1 to 10, I don’t think the number existed for the pain I was in. My pain was so off the charts that every time I thought my pain was as bad as it could get, and it would get worse, I didn’t think it was physically possible to be in that much pain.
I had shooting pain down my leg like fire and needles that was so bad that some days I couldn’t even move an inch or I would scream for hours. My husband and even my children would have to hold my hips in place because if I moved the pain was that extreme. Sometimes we would decide on a day to take me out of my bedroom to put me in the family room, and to get down the stairs could take an hour, and we’d have to use a wheelchair to get from my stairs to my couch, which is about three feet.
I could barely move. I could not care for my children at all. I couldn’t care for myself at all. I had no ability to do really anything with my children except have them lay in my bed with me. So we read a lot of stories, but I pretty much lost everything I had in my life. I am a full-time mom and wife and I lost all of that. I had no, I had no functioning.
As a mom with this spine condition that I had and being in such extreme pain, I felt at a complete loss. I felt my life was over. I felt that my kids would never have the life I planned for them. I felt that I was failing my entire family, that I couldn’t take care of them. I felt that every day that passed I was missing out on them growing up. My kids were little. My daughter was only one and my son was three, so they were little, and I was missing every little moment they had, and I still, I still feel a loss for that time with them. And now that I am well I treasure every single moment with them every day. I literally count my blessings all day.