November 4, 2009

A Pain in the Neck



I had hope for the future . . .

But then I destroyed my neck. I hurt it by using a bad side-lying position to breastfeed my sick baby all night on Saturday. The following day I went to pick him up and heard an awful tearing sound coming from my cervical spine.

The irony is, people in the medical field get the least mercy when they are ill or hurt. If you're having fevers, puking, or got the runs you're still expected to come in. A torn muscle? Puh-leez. So I tried to endure the first few days of my new rotation, but here I am typing this post from home. . . unable to look anywhere except straight ahead.

I actually don't have any sick days to use because my maternity leave (a whopping 5 weeks) ate them all up. I'm using the last of my vacation days, which I had reserved for emergencies such as this and/or my brother-in-law's upcoming wedding . . . in Japan. Sadly, this time off might mean I can't go anymore. (If you're reading this Paul and Mayu, I'm soooo sorry!!!)

I couldn't have imagined I'd hurt myself this badly. If you consider that I gave birth to my son who was face-up without an epidural and now I'm tearing up from pain you know that this is bad.

Just trying to rest up and pray that I'm OK by tomorrow. Because this resident mommy must get back to work.

1 comment:

Jen Westpfahl said...

The tearing sound made me wince. Sounds like something that can't be fixed except with time, eh? I hope it doesn't take too long.