Nothing Has Changed

I wish I could say that my herniated disk/nerve problems have miraculously improved after my surgery three weeks ago, but they haven't.  It's such a bummer.  I went last week for my 2-week post-surgery checkup with pretty much the same pain I had pre-surgery, so the doctor did a back x-ray.  He said the disk spacing looked good, but the persistent nerve pain was worrisome.  We decided to give it two more weeks, just in case the pain was from my spinal nerve still being inflamed from the actual surgery.  I'm taking anti-inflammatories twice a day and trying to limit my lifting.  If, when I go back next week, I'm still experiencing this intense pain, I'll probably have another MRI done.  Maybe I have a new herniated disk, or maybe the previously herniated disk has degenerated further and pieces are protruding into my spinal nerve again.  There is definitely still something very wrong, because I'm in pain pretty much at all times.  Whatever it is, I just wish we could definitively get it taken care of.  I can't believe this is what my life is now.  I used to run, work out, play sports, take walks with Dutch, do home improvement projects, run errands with ease, rock my son to sleep, etc, etc.  Now, I can barely walk from one side of the house to the other without a throbbing pain in my legs.  I have to stop and take breaks often.  There's no chance I could run, let alone walk around the block.  At the grocery store, I suffer through the pain as I walk down the aisles.  I have to lean forward over the cart to relieve some of the pain, or just stop and squat or sit down to handle it.  I try to mask it around other people, but you can be certain that I'm probably hurting if you see me and I'm not sitting down.  I get choked up when people ask me how I'm doing, because all I can think about is what my life was like last year versus this year.  I'm not happy.  I'm in pain all the time.  I can't be myself.  I can't be the mom I want to be.