I’m getting sick of these four walls

I think I’m starting to go a little stir crazy! I’ve mostly been stuck inside the house for the last couple of weeks and I’m tired of the view! LOL

As my regular readers know I have Crohn’s disease and I’ve been on medical leave from my job as an ER nurse for five years now. Unfortunately I can add a bad back into my list of woes now too. I found out about a year ago that I have a herniated disc in my lower back so the last year I’ve had a lot of back pain and a numb left thigh.

My back got really bad on Christmas evening. I’d spent the previous two or three days cleaning the house from top to bottom in order to prepare for three rounds of house guests during the holiday season and then standing cooking all day on Christmas day must have just been the last straw for my back.

Sitting during Christmas dinner was excruciating. You see when I stand too long it seems to make my tailbone go out and sitting or moving around becomes extremely painful. To top everything off, the next day I got new symptoms – my numb left thigh got even number and then my left thigh started burning – as if I was standing with my leg pressed against a radiator or something extremely hot.

So now if I stand for as little as 15 minutes my thigh starts burning! It’s an awful feeling! Luckily if I go and lie down on my side with my legs bent (sort of like a fetal position) the burning subsides.

Now … two weeks or more later I haven’t done a lot of sitting. I’m stuck inside the house because can’t stand or walk for long without everything getting worse … but, thanks to lying down a lot my back, tailbone and leg seem to be quite a bit better.

I did go out on Sunday … we bought a new front loading high efficiency washer and dryer set at a local furniture store. While we were there we looked at the new HDTV sets and some contemporary sofas. I know our TV is going to die sometime this year so we thought it would be a good idea to figure out which models we like … as for the sofas … well … if we ever do get around to renovating the basement I think I’ll bring our living room couch, sofa and chair set downstairs and get a new sofa for the living room.

We have NO money … but hey .. I can dream … and that little outing to the store- while it was hard on my back – was nice. It alleviated some of the boredom I’d been feeling by having to be stuck at home lying down all the time because of my bad back.

Have you ever been stuck at home for a few weeks (or months) due to illness or something like a bad back? I know for some people being stuck at home in bed for even a day or so can drive them nuts – so imagine weeks!