SANIBEL SWAN SONG

You may have noticed I've not been posting for a long while so I want to explain myself. It began this past November after a long day of shelling on my favorite Sanibel beach, the one shown here by the lighthouse fishing pier.

Walking back to the car I noticed that my back hurt more than usual after all that bending, stooping, crouching, sitting and stretching I'd done to gather the tiny shells I love. In fact, it hurt so badly I could barely keep my feet moving, but I persisted and finally settled myself into my car seat for the ride back home. By the time we'd reached home I felt fine again and forgot all about my back problem.

We returned to the beach a couple of days after Christmas and I enjoyed a fabulous afternoon of gathering hundreds of wentletrap shells along a good stretch of beach around Lighthouse Point. I sat on the sand and scooted myself along slowly as I scanned for the telltale white ridges alerting me to another little wentletrap to pick up. Walking back to the car later I again felt a heavy pain in my lower back and was glad when I'd again been seated.

By January I was having enough steady pain in my lower back that I'd purchased a pair of crutches to help me get around. Not to let that little inconvenience stop me, I again went shelling, this time laying my crutches next to me on the sand while I sat and picked up colorful coquinas and tiny white cups. When I wanted to move to a different area my husband helped me stand again so that I could walk with my crutches to the next spot on my mental list.

We made one more shelling trip last month before it happened, this one to find heaps and heaps of dead starfish and purple sea urchins along the shoreline. We both picked up as many as we were able and drove home in the then cold weather with our car heater blasting. My back hurt like crazy but I expected the pain to settle down in a little while, as usual. But this time it only got worse and by 3 a.m. or so I was screaming in agony. I couldn't stand, I couldn't sit, I couldn't lay down ... nothing eased that incredible pain until I finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

To make a longer story short, it appears I have developed sciatica and it's seriously affecting my left leg. The first few days were a sort of living hell from the pain, but by staying seated in an upholstered chair in our living room those initial flames of agony slowly began to fade. It's been 3 weeks since then and although I've gotten to feeling much better, I know I will need to stay off my feet for several more weeks, or even months, to heal. I'm still in almost constant pain and can't walk or stand for more than a few seconds, even with crutches, necessitating us to rent one of those little power chairs (at $450 per month!) so I can move around my home. I have to sleep sitting up in my upholstered chair in the living room, my husband has had to do all our cooking, laundry, shopping, etc. after working a full 8 hour day at his job (which makes me feel VERY guilty as well as extremely grateful that he's done so without complaint).

I'm terrified that I won't be able to go shelling on Sanibel ever again. Recently, though, I was able to get back to sculpting my minis again, so that has been a Godsend But most importantly I learned a valuable lesson: pay attention to my body's warning signs! It was so stupid of me to ignore them. If I'd done something in November when my back tried to tell me it needed my attention I wouldn't be in this awful situation. I hope you, too, will learn from my experience and not ignore any persistant aches and pains you may have. I'll never take my health for granted again and hope none of you will ever take yours for granted, either.