Everyone says the pain you go through is worse than the pain of others because it’s your pain. There is probably some truth in that. Sickness includes.

This weekend was supposed to be a weekend where I spend most of the time writing and just chilling. Instead? Well, instead I spent a busy Saturday morning farmers market shopping. Then came home to wrestle my ginormous Walker Treeing Coonhound.  The outcome? An already busted back more busted.

Walker Treeing Coonhounds are beautiful animals. Here is mine…

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They say the Treeing Walker Coonhound is loving and eager to please, they are intelligent, skilled and confident. They are swift with a very good sense of smell and a distinctive howl and really good companions. They also say that they are supposed to be in between 50-70 pounds. They lie.

The professionals have the intelligent, skilled and confident traits right. They say training is done with little trouble. They also have an amazing sense of smell. And hearing. Once, Bax could hear a sheep that was almost a football field away. He has a howl that sounds scarier than it is. He isn’t swift. Nope, he’s as clumsy as I am. Training took long because he’s so stubborn, also like me. The weight part? The biggest lie. My baby doesn’t sit at 50. Nor, 60. Not even 70. My Baxter is a beast. He tops over 100 pounds. And I tried to wrestle him.

All of that to say, a degenerative disk is already annoying. A degenerative disk after wrestling a 100 pound dog who is stronger than he thinks is even worse. It feels like a knife is stabbing you in the back then twisting until you can’t move. It feels like a thousand pins shooting down your leg right after you try to stand when you leg has fallen asleep. It feels like war has decided to go off in your back and nothing in the world – not over the counter medication, prescribed medication, legal but frowned upon medication – can stop it. Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic. But, lying on my back without being able to do anything is hard.

There isn’t anything profound to share with you today. No be the person you need to be. No the world is your oyster. No when God closes a door He opens a window. While all of these y’all should know it isn’t what is needed.

I’ve been going, going, going for most of the summer. Today, I just want you to remember to take time for you. Sleep in when you get a chance. Indulge on some amazing wine or expensive chocolate. Laugh until you cry with your friends. Do something that makes you happy. Otherwise, life may catch up on you and make you wrestle a dog more than half your size to get you to sit still and rest. Life is all about the dramatics, take it easy and try to skip it, will ya?

Read a book. Sit on the beach. You do you. xoxo