Hola!

Okay, Spanish got HARD super quick.  I mean REALLY hard.  There are 3 of us in the class and the other 2 ladies know a lot of Spanish already.  It was a verbal massacre on my part last night.  

But ... I'm giving it my best.  5 more weeks at this level and then I'll take a break because I need a balance between outside-the-box and pressure.  It's very possible I'll need to retake this level because speaking is so dang difficult for me.  It forms in my head and then my tongue does something that doesn't even resemble my head voice.

My back was really off yesterday.  Sleeping wasn't good, BUT NO SPASMS.  That's my goal for this week.  If I don't have any improvement by the end of the month, I'll start the process to get an epidural injection.  

I think I overdid it a bit yesterday.  My watch stopped so I ended up walking a little more than I planned.  Then I did a fast trip to the supermarket -- driving and my back aren't a good combination it seems.  The evening class sitting upright in a chair was tough too.  I'm going to go easy today.

Hubby left this morning for 10 days.  As I said before -- good and bad.  I'm happy to have time to myself because I'm level 100 grumpy, but I could use the help with the household to rest my back.  I'm also scared I'll have another flare up while he's gone.

I decided to bag the 30 day challenge because I'm not feeling it at all.  I'm going to focus on what is the best decision for my health -- physical, emotional.  For example, making and eating a batch of GF cookies IS NOT the best decision for any part of my health (even though that sounds so comforting right now).  Pushing to walk the dogs when I'm hurting is not the best decision.  I'm going to focus firmly on ME these next 10 days and see where that gets me.  This includes asking for help if I need it.  Fingers crossed on all fronts.

I postponed the coaching call today and that felt like a decision for me.  Her changing the schedule aside, I'm not in a headspace to think about coaching.  I am signed up for the 20 minute sessions with SCS -- first one this Friday.  Those might actually be more of what I need right now.

My attitude is marginally better until I think about the fact that I don't seem to be improving.  That sends me into panic that this is going to be a super long-tern problem.  Rest doesn't feel like it's doing anything.  If anything, I'm getting a little worse each day again.  Is it the walking?  Both docs say I need to do some easy walking to help the problem.  The only level up is I'm off the steroids and muscle relaxers -- hope I can stay off of them.  The side effects are finally waning -- mouth sores, dry mouth, stomach pbs are all almost gone.

I have perspective -- I'm not going to die from this, but this isn't fun.  Silver lining is hard, acceptance is hard too.  I'm trying.  Hope we all can have a decent day today -- that's as far as my bar goes.  Later gators.