Doesn’t it always go this way: you go through  an incredibly busy, stressful period in your life and then your body gives out and reminds you to slow down and taker care of yourself? That’s how I’m feeling about my back right now.

This fall has been an unending stream of physical and emotional demands and now my back muscles have been in spasms for almost two weeks. Beginning with the unexpected “freezer thaw” that challenged me to cook 100 lbs. of meat in one week and continuing with the basement flood and charity dance competition, my body has been working hard. That stress has been intensified by the emotional departure of my father-in-law from pneumonia and leukemia, followed a week later by my beloved uncle who had survived debilitating scleraderma for 8 years.

Our house has seen a lot of tears lately, and we miss them both. It feels too soon for my parents’ generation to begin dying off.

All of this stress has made me not feel like blogging much lately, but it’s the pain in my back from the muscle spasms that keeps the heating pad going all day long.

I had a therapeutic massage last week from my massage therapist, and it helped, but then I picked up a heavy bag and the agony started all over again.

Today, my sister reminded me that the last time this happened I found some relief by taking homeopathic arnica internally and also by rubbing arnica oil directly on the affected muscles. She was right: after just one dose of arnica, the muscle stopped spasming. The aching is still there, probably from the lactic acid build-up, but I will take another few doses over the course of the evening and will expect to have a better night tonight than last night.

I’m also going to get another massage, because, really, there is no substitute for hands-on work when it comes to tight muscles.

Sometimes everyone needs this kind of reminder to take care of themselves.  🙂