Take Care of YOU
Hey. Hey. Hey. Welcome back. Welcome back.
Nikki:I am on location, which I haven't been on in a minute. I'm outside. I'm walking, and I hope this audio will be okay. I got my noise cancellation on. But the other part is, like, I kinda don't want my noise cancellation on because I want y'all to hear these birds.
Nikki:I don't know what they chirping about, what they singing about, what they talking about, what they arguing about, but they sound so beautiful. And you might, but I don't want y'all to hear my flip flops flopping. Something I usually don't do, which is wear flip flops on a walk. But and, of course, y'all are gonna hear me breathing hard because I'm walking up a hill, and I'm trying to get off the hill for a reason I tell y'all in a second. Distracted by nature.
Nikki:There's so much going on around me. It's so pretty today. Sunny, not a single solitary cloud in the sky. Whole sky is blue. Whole sky is blue.
Nikki:And okay, my flip flops. I have walking shoes that I usually wear. Like, it's the right thing to do. I want to have the right foot support. I don't want to hurt myself or anything.
Nikki:And today I said, you know what? I don't put my flu funds on. And not just any flip flops, but my my pink slides with a fur on top. Yeah. I know what I'm talking about.
Nikki:I'm sure y'all got a pair too. These these beads, it looks like they are growing Christmas trees. There are so many weeds, big weeds, like tall. They gotta be two feet tall. It looks like Christmas trees were on.
Nikki:Okay. Anyway, I'm off the hill. Somebody dropped a whole box of raisins. Oh, thanks. I'm off the hill.
Nikki:I'm on flat land now. And I still hear me breathing a little bit heavily because I'm trying to keep up a decent pace. But I'm hopping back and forth. It's all right. The reason that, wearing the flip flops is because I was like, you know what?
Nikki:I just don't feel like having my toes in no shoe today. Part of it is it's such a beautiful day. I'm out here to get some sun take a walk, get some knowledge under my belt today and bring some relief to my lower back because my physical therapist team said that out of all the things you can do for your lower back, in my case it's spinal stenosis, lumbar sacral spinal stenosis, as well as two herniated discs in that same lumbar sacral region. So, I don't even want y'all to imagine what it feels like on the daily. It's not curable, it's manageable.
Nikki:It might be curable with surgery, but I ain't never been cut open in my life. I'm not about to start getting cut open now, especially on my damn back. So I'm in the manageable zone, the holistic managing of it. So I said no to the steroid and cortisol shots. I did the, hi.
Nikki:Good morning. I, did the physical therapy for a minute. It was cool, but it was very familiar because a lot of the things they had me doing and a lot of the tools, the bands and stuff that they had me using were things that I already had at home and exercises that I did at home. But my physical therapist there, nice, very gentle, very patient, super supportive. And I was grateful for that.
Nikki:And part of me was like, why am I paying for this? When I can go home and do it for free with my own stuff? But the catch is I was over just getting the x rays. I said, I need a whole story about what is going on in my lower back. We'll get to the how it happened and the why it happened later, but for right now, I need to know what is going on.
Nikki:I need y'all to run more tests and I ended up getting an MRI. But in order to get the MRI, I had to do X number of weeks of physical therapy. It might have been like ten, eight, ten, twelve weeks, something like that. So I decided to take what the physical therapist had taught me, incorporate that into what I was doing at home. And then once I completed those sessions, now let's get an MRI.
Nikki:I'm thankful for the MRI because it told me everything I needed to know. What I didn't like oh, those hostas are so pretty. They are so pretty. What I didn't like was doing the MRI. First of all, I had a cold.
Nikki:Like I was sick AF when I had to get my MRI, which is rare for me to even be that sick to begin with. So when I went, I had my mask on. I'm on this table. Faustrophobic. It's probably four inches max between me and the top of the machine, like me laying on my mat.
Nikki:The machine, the top of this machine, big heavy metal machine, maybe four inches from my chest. So now, knowing that I'm claustrophobic, but I gotta get this done, I had to close my ass the whole time and almost forced myself into a state of calm and a state of peace because when you're getting the imaging done, you have to be stiff. You cannot move. And there are certain parts where you can't even breathe. You have to hold your breath.
Nikki:So, imagine trying to hold your breath. You already sick with this machine down there barreling down on you. It was a struggle. Girl, why don't you just reschedule your MRI? Because if I rescheduled, I would have had to wait another six weeks or so.
Nikki:I was at my wit's end. We're trying to figure out what was going on with my back, so I didn't wanna wait that long. So I said, I'll be okay because I'm gonna make me a a tonic with some lemons and turmeric and ginger and all the stuff I add, and I'll be okay. So I was starting to get okay, but I still had that residual coughing. So some of the positions you, or some of the positions I had to redo because they take multiple images, positions, things like that.
Nikki:And okay. I'm coming up on another incline. Well, I am on another incline. But doing all of that, I get the report back and I went to I don't know how I got off on a tangent talking about this. I was about to be I plan to talk about some motherhood stuff, but I'm not here for relief of what I'm talking about.
Nikki:So maybe that's why I went off on a tangent. Report comes back and before my doctor shares the report with me, she said, let's talk about how it feels again. Let's recap your initial diagnosis. Tell us on a day to day basis how your back feels, where do you feel pain the most, how do you describe I'm telling her. Most days, it feels like there's somebody behind me with a sword in my back.
Nikki:And wherever I go, they just follow me with a sword and twist it around in my lower back, like, smack dab in the middle of my back, right above my butt. And I told her that I feel more tightness on the right side versus the left and describing all of these things to her. And so she's like, everything you said is exactly what's going on. And that what the image is showing. She went into detail about the stenosis, which I had heard before.
Nikki:So, wasn't really surprised. And then the two herniated discs. So, started educating myself about that and I have a new physical therapist team and it's nothing, you know, no, no shade or nothing to the last team. They were great. But this new team is more holistic and has more has more variety and different things so that I don't get bored.
Nikki:And one of the things that, one of the dimension is that I told them what I do to manage it. Like I get massage, I get deep tissue massages and I go to acupuncture which I love. If you've never been an acupuncture, go. You don't have to have an ailment to go either, but I look forward to going to acupuncture. That's all I'm saying.
Nikki:It's not going to steer you wrong now. If you've never been, you should go. If you haven't been in a while, you should go. Reminder for me to schedule my next appointment with my acupuncturist, massages, the acupuncture, the detox baths, steam showers, the pilates, all the stuff that I do, the diet change, that's helpful. That's all helpful.
Nikki:But one of the simplest things you can do to really help the stenosis which the stenosis is a narrowing of this bad. So, you think about taking your thumb and your index index finger and making a circle, forming a circle. If you take the index finger and middle finger of your other hand and stick it through that hole that you made, those fingers that you're sticking through, imagine those as being the nerves. And the circle that you made is the vertebrae. So if you start to bring your thumb and index finger closer together so that that hole is smaller, you'll feel your fingers that are making the circle are now pretty much touching the index and the middle finger of the other hand.
Nikki:So that touching from in terms of the back is the narrowing that so that space is a little bit smaller. And hi, good morning. So that space is a little bit smaller and those fingers are the nerves. So now you have nerves touching vertebrae. And what are nerves?
Nikki:Sensitivity. What happens when you touch something? When a nerve touches something, hitting your funny bone or something like that, it hurts like hell. So that's that. Then the two herniated discs, you have the liquid, I don't know what the official term is, but the liquid, the little glue, the gelatin type of substance between the two vertebrae that lubricate your spine and keep your, keeps your back intact basically.
Nikki:That jelly like substance has become compressed and thinner, so it's smooshed. So I have a lot of analogies that are just popping in my head, but what I'm thinking about is, say if you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and you lather the jelly on there and then you squeeze the two pieces of bread and then the jelly starts to ooze out a little bit, that's like a herniated disc. So because of that, the space between the vertebrae is narrower. So then those vertebrae get close to touching each other and create friction and pain essentially. My favorite thing that I compare it to is most times it feels and it sounds like two cinder blocks rubbing together.
Nikki:I hear the random pops in my back, the tension sometimes where I was telling my husband, like, I feel like if if somebody just dangled me upside down, like, would decompress and would be okay. Random thought that I just researched on and talked to my physical therapist and learned that inversion therapy is a thing. So I was going to bath an inversion table because basically we're always upright, we're always on our feet. So imagine everything that's down and in place right now, if you were the opposite way and on your head instead of on your feet, imagine all the things that would come down. Like if you had a change in your pocket, the change is coming out, right?
Nikki:So I had this thought in my head that if I'm inverted 180 degrees, then that should create some space in my back. I actually read that some people who invert, who have herniated discs, sometimes that gently, like the substance that's protruding out, can actually be put back into place. So, I found that to be interesting. So I was debating, do I want to get an inversion table? Is it worth the investment, or is it just another gadget to have?
Nikki:And first I said, well, let me invert myself. So I have an exercise ball that I use to stretch most days. And I laid on my back, put my feet in the air and I inverted myself. It felt so good. Now my shoulder was a little messed up because the way I was trying to sit back on my shoulders and not on my head because I was only partially inverted, but I was still, let me turn around before I hit another implant.
Nikki:So I was partially inverted, but I still didn't have the effect. And I was like, oh, this feels good. I actually feel space in my back. But, so not but, So that's one of the things I've incorporated recently. I think I'm a just go ahead and buy the inversion table.
Nikki:I need to learn a little bit more about it because I don't want it taking up space and all of that. Part of the soft life is minimalistic living. I do not need a bunch of gadgets, decor, vases, sculptures, candle holders like I used to have. And I wanted to share that. And they also, I don't know if I said this already, but the one thing that, my physical therapist team said, which is why I turned around from the incline, is that walking is best.
Nikki:It's one of the simplest things you can do for stenosis. And it's best to walk on a flat surface versus a heel. Some of the inclines I couldn't avoid, but for the most part, I'm trying to walk on a flat surface. And I have some pretty good cushion in my flip flops. And again, I'm not doing HIIT.
Nikki:This is not super intense. So it's just a walk, casual walk to get things warmed up and moving and unstiffened in my back. So this is one of those things too, that somebody doggy treats is on the ground. This is one of those things that we as mothers have to make time to do. So when I said it's not hit, it's not super intense workout, it's simply going outside.
Nikki:Get some fresh air, take in nature, get some vitamin D from the sun, and just walk. Just walk. No agenda. You ain't gotta put on nothing fancy. Just take a walk.
Nikki:I got on some wide leg sweatpants and a hoodie and a hat. Any day is a good day for a hoodie. If our kids have taught us nothing else, they taught us that. But I'm finished my walk. And what am I doing today?
Nikki:I had cryo and PBM today. I'm a go get my hair together and find something good to cook. So you're listening to this, like, how am I supposed to do that? I ain't got time. I gotta do this, this, and this.
Nikki:It's a light day at work for me. And even if it wasn't, there was still something that I would be doing because I make it a point to pause these days to not be doing anything, because we're always doing something, For these kids, for these partners, boyfriend, girlfriends, husbands, wives, for our jobs, for our companies, sometimes for ourselves. We get embedded with ourselves because a lot of us, myself included, I used to be at the bottom of my own priority list and I realized how depleting that was for me. So when everybody else around you is happy and thriving and you are just so out of gas, then something had to change. Captured a really cute skyscraped.
Nikki:And while I was doing that, I looked at my phone and saw I was at twenty eight minutes. And y'all know or twenty seven minutes. Y'all know that I know that we got stuff to do, like I just said, and I keep these episodes to thirty minutes or less to give y'all moment to pause, tapping in with the working mamas, forget everything around you that's happening for a minute and just have a moment for us. So again, hope this audio is good. I love these type of unscripted, off the dome, much needed conversations that we need to have about our wellness, about taking care of ourselves, about getting second opinions, and third and fourth opinions if you need them, and doing what works for you.
Nikki:Because had I listened to my first doctor, I would be taking steroids and doing all of the pharmaceutical shit that she wrote for me. I was like, yeah. I'm good. I'm a go the holistic way. I'm good.
Nikki:I don't wanna take that whatever you prescribed to Band Aid one problem and then create 10 others with the side effects. Not interested. So I said I'm willing to try some new things in my diet. That's why I was answering my question. I like to work out.
Nikki:I'm not as consistent as I wanna be, but I'm working on it. I like cooking and I love Pilates and yoga and acupuncture and random walks like this. Because my back feels better already. Most days my back is one or two, but some days it's eight, and this shit is crazy. But right now, it's probably a.
Nikki:So you don't always have to with what the first doctor supposed. You don't always have to spend a ton of money. Let's see if I do, you know, you better than anybody else. And before I'm done, I wanna leave the room again for us to make time for us as mommas. The work will be there when we get back.
Nikki:The kids will be there when we get back. The family that needs us will be there when we get back. The partners, they'll be there. There's nothing like filling up your own cup as cliche as it sounds. It's so important.
Nikki:Yes. So overlooked. So, I'm reminding you to take care of yourself today and every day. Do something nice for you too. Even if it's sitting in a corner for five minutes and taking some deep breaths uninterrupted.
Nikki:I also learned last tangent, promise that your lungs take up as much space as you allow them to. They're not a set size. So when you breathe deep, when you make a practice of breathing deeply, consistently every day, and you let your lungs expand as much as you can, then they start to take up more space. Just random stuff I learned as I read as I'm a lifelong learner. And okay, before another tangent comes, to take care of you, do something nice for you, whatever you've been putting off or canceling or rescheduling when it comes to your joy, I dare you to do that today.
Nikki:Whatever that thing is that makes you happy, gets you excited, makes your heart sing. But do that for yourself. You deserve it. So okay. I'm done.
Nikki:I'm almost wrapped up my walk, and I don't want to keep you out too long, so thank you for being here. Make sure you come back and check out more episodes of the Working Mama pod Working Mama's podcast. Tell your mom, friends about us, tell anybody about us. I dare you to tell one person about us. We just here, we live in life as moms unapologetically, and we want to, a brand, make life easier for busy moms.
Nikki:So I'm out. Y'all be good and be good to yourself. See y'all next time.
