Achy Leg Syndrome (ALS)

My whole life I've had this weird thing that I now refer to as ALS, or "Achy Leg Syndrome". Basically, my legs would start aching - usually late at night, but sometimes during the day as well - every once and a while and the only way to help the situation was to have someone rub my legs for me, take a crap ton of ibuprofen, or soak in a hot bath and go to bed. The pain is immense. And annoying. In fact, when I was a little, little girl, I used to wake up in the middle night crying in pain and my dad would have to come rub my legs until I went back to sleep. I always thought that what I was experiencing was growing pains. And when I thought it was growing pains it was easier to bear since I have always been a little on the shorter side and longed to be just one more inch taller. (5'6"? Come on universe!)

But when the pains continued sporadically into my adulthood (yes, I'm almost 24 now and have been a college grad for a year and a half, so I'm now referring to myself as an "adult") I started to think that perhaps these weren't actually growing pains as I had previously figured. So I started to notice that the trend was that my legs would start aching when I was overly exhausted (is that redundant?). 

The funny thing is that this weekend I was hanging out with my little brother (more on this in a minute) and he mentioned that his legs start hurting when he's really tired. I was like WHAT?! ME TOO! How funny that ALS runs in the family. It must be some kind of genetic mutation or something (cue X-men theme music).

Okay okay, so the point of this story is that yesterday, after work, I got ALS. Which wasn't cool because I still had a LONG night ahead of me. But man, OF COURSE I'm exhausted. Saturday night when I was with my brother he mentioned having a pain in his right side. At first we thought he pulled a muscle or maybe even hurt a rib. But as the night progressed, so did his pain, until he was writhing on my couch, red faced and sweating and unable to sit comfortably. It was at this point that I decided it was time to make a visit to the ER. We got there at 11pm, we left at 4am. And after an x-ray, some needles, and an ultrasound (I now tell my brother that I know him inside and out), the doctor said I'm not sure what's causing the pain or why it's getting worse, but take some anti-inflammatories and if it doesn't get better in 5 days come back. I could have punched that doctor. But I was tired to even function so we just left.

The next day I had church at 9am. I have a new calling in church that requires me to spend more time there than I usually would, so I got about 4 hours of sleep and then spent the majority of my day at church in various meetings. Only to wake up the next day at 6:45am and work until 5pm (which, it's the end of the quarter and I don't get my bonus if I don't meet all of my quarterly objectives AND I'm leaving for California Thursday evening so I have a short work week in which to get everything finished PLUS I have to prepare a lot of things for when I get back into work the following week), had to run some errands for church and for the weekend after work, then rushed to scarf down some food and headed back over to church for FHE (which lasted WAY too long - somebody please tell me why some people think that FHE needs to be some kind of epic excursion?), had a meeting afterward, and then another meeting after that, which meant spending the rest of the night (until 10:30pm) planning and organizing and etc. etc. etc. Only to wake up this morning at 7am wondering where in the world I was and what was happening, then rushing to get ready for work in 20 mins and gearing up for another full day of busy work and another night full of meetings.

So yes, I'm completely and utterly exhausted (hence the ALS) and I don't see an end to that in the near future. I have busy days at work today, tomorrow, and thursday, I have to pack at some point tomorrow, and then I'm not getting in to California until late on Thursday night, for a full morning of helping my parents paint and unpack (they just moved into a new house that I'm super excited to see!), an evening full of family, and then a weekend full of more painting and unpacking. Somewhere in there we'll go to church, somewhere in there we'll celebrate the 4th of July, and then I'll fly back late Tuesday night and have to wake up early the next day for another full week of work.

The last time I washed my hair was Saturday. Somebody please remind me to shower sometime soon and make sure that I'm eating all my meals.

Thanks.