An Unwanted Guest Returns and is a Giant Pain in the A**

It was a cool Saturday in early December of 2007. Inside our house, the gas fireplace was warming me, or maybe it was because I was coming up on 5-months pregnant.

I was decorating for the holiday. Three St. Bernard-size Rubbermaid bins were hogging floorspace in the living room, and I was unwinding tattered tissue from my Santa collection, detangling shiny plastic bead garlands, rediscovering the Hallmark ornaments I bought the day after Christmas in 2006 and hanging the little wooden ones my mother saved for me from when I was a baby.

My in-laws would be arriving from Florida in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to make the house festive. I love dressing our fake-but-realistic tree, setting up my Dept. 56 Dickens' Village on our oversized mantel, and arranging my collection of snow globes and stringing little white lights all around the house. I think Mr. T once described my holiday decor like this: "It looks like Christmas exploded in our living room." Thanks, hon.

(Mr. T loves this description, by the way. He recently used it to describe T Junior's day care provider's front room, which was littered with Girl Scout cookie boxes. "A Girl Scout exploded" is kind of gross, though, if you ask me.)

Anyway, back to 2007. Later that evening, the tree was done -- sparkling with clear white lights, red and silver balls, plastic Snoopy ornaments, wooden toys, reflective beads, ribbons and glittery red clip-on poinsettia's -- but I noticed an aching pain running down the back of my left leg. It was like someone was pulling a muscle that connected my left butt cheek to my toes. Soon, my five little piggies started to tingle and a sharp pain began sticking me in the lower back. An electric shock.

Soon, it hurt to sit. It was painful to lay down. Standing up straight was no longer an option. I could not make it past the bent-over position. I felt like an aching 80-year-old woman -- except with a baby bump, and no wrinkles and no pain mediciation!

I suffered through the night -- rolling myself out of my bed, falling a fast three feet to the floor, landing on my hands and knees. I crawled to the bathroom in the moonlight. I used the edge of the soaker tub to heft myself as upright as I could get, then hobbled to the toilet. My teeth practically drew blood from my lower lip when I sat down.

I wasn't any better on Sunday. The electric shocks happened less often, but they were just as breath-taking. Monday I called in sick to work. I could barely move my legs, how was I supposed to drive? I called the doctor's office and the nurse told me there was nothing I could do except ice and heat. At least that alleviated some of the sharpness, but it left behind an ache, an ice cream headache in my back and leg.

The next day, the pain was a little less, and the next day a tiny bit better and so on. I don't think it ever went away; it just got mixed in with the other achy, bloaty, puffy, creaky feelings I was experiencing in late pregnancy. Then I delivered my baby boy and I had other things to worry about.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, I was holding the 20-pound squirming octopus. I was about to sit on the couch to feed him. I sucked in air and held my breath as my body bent and gravity pulled me down. It was back. The piercing pain shot like an arrow from my the left side of my lower back down to the tips of toes on my left foot. Every time I breathed, it stabbed me.

Today, I still have the pain. It's sticking around like the last guest at a party that has gone on too long. It is not as strong as it was, but it is enough to make me wish I had a chiropractor.

I guess I should get one. I don't know how or why I have put up with it this long. Maybe after experiencing childbirth, I'm stronger. Or, maybe I'm just lazy. Or, maybe I just don't know what to do.

Anyone else have sciatica? What did you do? I'm "this close" to doing something about it. Seriously.