Ow.

I’m having a difficult day today, physically.  Yesterday afternoon, I smashed the side of my foot into a large, metal, immovable object.  Oddly, I didn’t feel how much it hurt until I got home after Zumba and took off my socks.  I spent a good amount of time with an ice pack on my foot to take the pain out.

While setting up the table for our dinner last night (while Justin ran to the restaurant to pick it up), I scratched the back of my hand on some unidentifiable sharp object, leaving a two-inch long mark on the back of my hand.  I also stepped on the metal mechanism for the folding stairs that lead into the attic and scratched the side of my un-bruised foot.

And all of that would be fine.  They match the scratches that cover the lower part of my legs from yard work we did over the weekend.  (Pictures of the yard work coming soon-ish.)  Scratches and bruises are familiar; I get those all the time.

What caught me by surprise was the 3 AM leg cramp.  This is my second leg cramp in less than a week, and my second ever that I can remember in my adult life.  I don’t get leg cramps.  Justin gets them every now and then, though, and they looked really painful.

THEY ARE.

The first one I got was early Wednesday morning.  I’ve been trying to remember which leg it was in.  While I wrote down that I got one, I didn’t think to write down which leg it was in.  Last night, I thought my first cramp was in my left leg, but now I’m more and more convinced it was in my right leg.

Either way, the first one wasn’t too terrible.  I mean, it hurt.  It woke me up and I said “Ow.” and I put my foot up in the air to try to stretch it out so it would stop hurting.  And then it hurt for several hours.  It wasn’t pleasant.  But it wasn’t so bad that I woke up Justin and once the muscle relaxed, I went back to sleep.

Last night, I woke up shouting in pain.  My right leg calf muscle was spasming and I couldn’t get it to straighten out.  Justin woke up when I shouted and asked what was wrong and how he could help.  I asked him to go get me some ice, and he ran downstairs to get some, and then came back upstairs, gently lifted my leg onto his lap and massaged it.  That helped, but the muscle kept cramping.  It would relax for a while, and then tighten up, I would cry out in pain, Justin would massage the muscles in my leg, and it would relax again.

I don’t know how long it went on, but it felt like forever.  I think I can handle a lot of pain, but I lay there crying as my muscle clenched up.  When it finally finished, I was terrified to move my leg because of the fear that moving the muscles would make it start all over again.  Justin helped me get situated and put the ice pack under my leg and we both went back to sleep.

Needless to say, my leg still hurts this morning.  I couldn’t get it to extend all the way when I got up.  It warms up after a while and I’m able to almost walk normally on it, but if I sit still for any length of time, or have to keep my foot flexed to drive my car, it tightens up again and I have to work it loose.  I’ve got a heat pack on it and I’ll be reheating that again and again today to help ease the pain there.  I’ve got my leg propped up on my trash can so the leg can relax.  I’ll be taking off my shoe here in a little bit so the bruise on my foot isn’t so aggravated.

I feel like I’m just falling apart here!