Playing Hooky

I'm home from work today because I hurt my back on Sunday. I wish I had a better story for how I hurt it, but unfortunately it was just "one of those things." I had come home from church and a quick trip to the grocery store with mom and was just about to sit in the living room and have a little lunch. I bent over to get a pillow off the couch and oops, something hurt. I guess I've pulled a muscle or something, but the amount of pain that comes with such an event is enough to make me think I broke a vertebre or something. I was flat on my back for the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening, and when I awoke, I knew there was no way I was going to make it into work today. As the day's gone on, the pain has lessened somewhat, but it is still there. The worst times are after I've been lying down and want to get up or when I'm upright and want to sit/lie down. That doesn't give me much choice. Either get down and stay down or get up and stay up.

I've managed to walk around the house a bit more this afternoon and have found that sitting in the computer chair is actually more comfortable than the bed or couch because it sits up higher and takes less effort to get up or down. Great -- now if I could just sleep in this chair and wheel myself to work tomorrow. I want to be able to go to work tomorrow at least for part of the day. I guess we'll see come morning.

Mom brought me a veritable medicine cabinet of creams and lotions that are supposed to ease muscle pain. Thankfully most of them don't make me smell old. I just can't really tell if they work or not. Ibuprofin doesn't seem to do a darn thing, let me tell you. But I am now a firm believer that all households must have at least one heating pad!!! Thank goodness, due to a Christmas miscommunication, we own two. I had Ken position one on the couch before he left for work this morning and I had one in bed with me. The thought of having to bend down to plug one in was more than I could stand this morning.

I think I'm now going to try to work on my syllabus/assignments for the comp classes I'm teaching in 2 weeks. That was supposed to be on my calendar for yesterday, but as you can imagine, that didn't happen. I have to take breaks when sitting here as my back gets more achy the longer I sit. Here's hoping this goes away by tomorrow!

If anyone has any good/interesting bachache remedies, please pass them along. I'll try anything at this point.