Everyone could use a helping hand

I think it's official: my body is falling apart. It all starts with an innocent sniffle, and the next thing I know, I'm a leaking cripple with a massive, unrelenting headache.

I'll start with the minor complaints and work my way up. This is actually a cuter, more quaint side of crippledom. Mike got a real kick out of himself, anyhow. So I have very little abdominal strength left. I guess this was to be expected, but I hadn't given it much thought. In fact, weeks ago when Becca was in town, she watched me struggling on my parents' living room floor like an overturned beetle, and she cautioned, "Brina, you know you're not supposed to use your abdominal muscles, right?" Uh, well, since you point it out, I guess that sounds like a good idea. But no, no one ever told me that. Okay, no problem, I'll roll onto my side when I have to get up. But sometimes, you really can't roll onto your side. I'm having trouble coming up with a good example of when you would have to rise straight up (I have a really shitty example, and that would be when I wake in the middle of the night and I have Mike blockading one side of me, and the body pillow and Cole blockading the other side, and I don't want to disturb the stupid cat because I like having him there), but I assure you that it happens very often throughout the day. Oh! When I want to drink a sip of water, but I'm supine on the couch, I must simply sit up. Mike has gotten very, very aware of when I need a little tug. He offers his hand before I even ask. It's very sweet. And I feel like a cripple. But here's where it gets creepy: he does it in his sleep. When I wake up and have to get out to the bathroom, but I can't sit up, I must grunt or something when I try, because he holds a hand up, and I pull on it, hard, and he supports me until I clamor over Cole, and he stays sleeping through the whole thing. I pointed out one morning that he'd been doing this for me, and it totally delighted him, since he had no idea.

This isn't as cute a story about crippledom. I've gotten leg cramps in my sleep every now and again since I was a teenager. I mean, sure, they suck, and it's a terrible feeling, but as quickly as they come on, they go away, and I could go right back to sleep. They increased in frequency somewhat as this pregnancy progressed (this is a very common complaint in pregnancy,) but last week, I had the leg cramp to end all leg cramps. And yet, I imagine that it could be worse. This cramp just wouldn't give up. It was so sudden and so strong, I woke up with a gasp, I'm sure, though all I was aware of was sitting straight up in bed, yelling "owwwwwwwwww!" (Apparently my abdominal muscles work when they have to.) I tried to flex my foot back towards me, as you're supposed to, but my foot was paralyzed. The muslces in my foot and calf were so rock hard, we could have used my leg to hammer in the rest of the moulding in the nursery (oh, yeah, that's still totally not finished.) And the more I tried to flex my foot, the more it hurt, and then I realized Mike was awake, rubbing my foot. It was very surreal. His rubbing kind of maybe helped, but I don't know, since the pain was already so excrutiating. Part of me was so thankful that he was trying to soften the muscle, and I didn't want him to stop, but part of me was afraid he was making it worse and I briefly considered clawing out his eyes. When I realized that this cramp wasn't going to stop, and it was worsening, tears started streaming down my face, and I yelled and screamed and cried, and after a couple more minutes, it softened, and I threw myself back and tried to catch my breath, and then it started again. Now that's never happened. Tears ran down my cheeks again, and I totally panicked. If I'd had a saw lying in bed, I'd have removed my leg. I swear to God. I wondered if the neighbors could hear my screams, and if they'd think Mike was murdering me. Then it softened up a little bit, and I lay back and tried to flex, flex, flex my foot, and it started once more. This last one probably only lasted a minute, but Mike probably thought I was dying. When it let up, I could still tell the muscle was still partially tensed, ready to fire at any second, and I hyperventilated and cried until that tension went away. I can't remember if I said anything to Mike except, "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do," over and over and over. I wondered how in the world I would ever survive childbirth. I always thought I was tough, and I could take some pain when it was necessary. (That's funny given that I'm pretty much a big sissy and I get hurt every time Mike wants to tickle me, and I whine about him being too rough with my delicate body.) Mike and I then slept from 5AM until 6AM, and when I woke and slid down out of bed, and stood, OW! My calf felt terribly bruised, as if I'd sprained the muscle. I walked it off and showered with little problem. It was sore, but not really crippling me. It was sore for the rest of the day, but really only for the first dozen yards or so I'd walk each time I got up. But Mike was very somber that morning. I kept asking him what was wrong, and it turned out that he was just upset over my painful episode, and he didn't know how to make it any better.

So then that afternoon, I was on the bus from hell, heading towards Mike's bus stop. (Our bus, the EBO, passes my work and then Mike's work. Most days, I am on the correct bus and he is just arriving at his bus stop as we arrive, and he gets on, and we ride home. Some days, I am on an earlier bus, and I must get off at his stop, and wait for him, and we get on the next bus. Some other days, I am on the correct bus, but it's so full of passengers that they can't let any more on, and since Mike's stop is at the end of the line in Oakland, I have to get off even though Mike is waiting at his stop, and we have to wait together for the next one.) This particular day, the bus driver was like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, except she was the Bus Nazi. She just kept yelling at people standing out on the sidewalk, "If you can't get behind the yellow line, you can't ride!" Of course, the people in the back of the bus were casually hanging around, with plenty of room, while the people in the front squished in like sardines. Finally, there was no way they were going to get another person behind that stupid yellow line. (Please bear in mind that Mike and I ride standing in front of the yellow line all the time--this driver was hard core.) So I knew that I'd have to get off at Mike's stop. When we got to his stop, I tried climbing through the people so I could get the hell out of the there. I'd like to think that no one would move, and they are all assholes, but the truth is, there was nowhere to move to. I am having a lot of trouble learning to navigate my big belly through crowds, and whatever I did to squeeze through didn't work. I fell onto my right knee (the leg that had cramped overnight) really hard. The crowd magically dispersed then, and thankfully, my sister was standing at the very front of the bus, only 4 or 5 feet from me (she and Carl were the last passengers to make it behind the yellow line), and she looked down, saw me kneeling on the floor, and her jaw dropped and she stared. So I held out my hand, and mumbled, "Uh, could you help me up?" And she stood me, and tried to make sure I was okay, but I bolted out of the bus as quickly as humanly possible. And once the bus was out of sight, I cried again. My knee throbbed. But I was more emotionally injured than physically injured. I was just tired of hurting, and tired of being clumsy and fat and out of control of my body, and I just wanted Mike! And he called right then, since he was running a couple of minutes behind, and he heard me cry, and he rushed to me and held me and just tried to console his pathetic wife. We made it home.

I was in much better spirits at home, and we made dinner and I vaccuumed a lot after dinner and cleaned up a little, and I was very productive. By bedtime, I was just wiped out. I was truly nervous about going to bed, for fear of having another cramp, but I fell right asleep and only woke once with a tiny pre-cramp that never amounted to much. Whew.

I woke up in the morning relieved, and slid out of bed, stood, and promptly fell. I caught myelf and fell back onto the bed, but my right gluteus maximus (big butt muscle) apparently had stopped working during the night. I could hardly stand! It kept giving out under me. I didn't understand. I hadn't hurt my butt, I hurt my calf and my knee. Then I decided that I was pretty well sore all over, and I had overdone it vaccuuming and stuff. And so I felt like a 90-year-old woman who can't do too much in a day lest she wear her body out. And I'm still having trouble getting used to this. I went shopping with my mom on Saturday, and made it to the third store before I just couldn't go anymore. I sat on a bench in Target for a very short time, and then had to get up and get moving again. I survived the day without any injuries, so that was nice, but I was just pooped.