Brittany Mahomes Announces Fractured Spine And I Think We Just Became Best Friends
According to an Instagram story posted yesterday Brittany Mahomes has a broken back and, shamefully, I'm a little pumped about it.
"Just your daily reminder: Once you have kids please take care of your pelvic floor. Seriously. From: A girl with a fractured back."
As a fresh new 2x mom with a blown out pelvic floor who's been going through the ringer with debilitating back pain these last several months I let out an audible "Oh Hell yes!" when I saw this. I've said it on here 1,000 times and I'll say it again - I'm a huge 'misery loves company' gal (AKA a bad person??) so, despite hoping she's not in pain, I was THRILLED to see she's dealing with the same things as me. It allows me to think, "Oh wow, me and Brittany Mahomes are exactly alike and that makes me and Taylor Swift close personal friends as well!" during these trying times.
How did we become so alike? Well I can't speak for her but about midway through the second trimester with my second child it started to feel like my whole badussy was going to flop down through my raggedy Hanes & onto the floor. The pressure was so intense that I was in constant discomfort, especially standing or walking. Sorry in advance for the imagery, but I could push on my groin and feel everything squishing back up in there like a hernia filled with Nickelodeon Gak.
The OBYGN said it was likely my pelvic floor struggling under the weight & pressure of the pregnancy. (Picture muscles and ligaments acting like a little hammock holding up the bladder, uterus, and bowel, and my hammock was saggin'. Cute!).
It got so bad I went to physical therapy (before this I had NO idea there was PT for your pelvic floor which would have been nice to know!) where a kindly older lady pressed on my taint and such while I tried to make small talk.
Pelvic floor PT specialist: doink!
Me: ah! ha ha Ope ha ha eh, I had a great cinnamon roll yesterday? Uh, windy out this morning.
Sadly the PT didn't seem to make a difference because I'd started far too late, and the idea of things getting any worse made me terrified of a vaginal birth (yeah sports fellas, I said it, VAGINAL) and played a big part in me scheduling a C Section instead. They said he was measuring large, and I feared no amount of work could rebuild my pelvic floor after a 10lb baby.
That appeared to be the right decision because the pressure seemed to vanish as soon as the baby arrived. Little did I know those muscles were still super weak, plus the vertical line of my abs had split in half and were now about 4 inches apart (diastasis recti), and then the C section cut through my abs the the other way, too. So there I was lifting a baby (and all the gear that comes with them) and playing with a toddler, not realizing I had absolutely zero core. Out of the bouncer and up onto the changing table and down to the rocker and up into the bassinet and… Any parent of babies/toddlers knows the cycle of hoisting never ends.
So how was I able to do all that with basically no abs at all?
Well, there were clues.. By early December my back started to get a bit sore. It was just annoying and didn't keep me from being an active mom, so I just joked about it and kept on rollin.
The pain kept creeping in though. On Christmas Day we got in the car to visit family in Indy, hit a small pothole and it irritated my back so bad that tears came to my eyes. Over the holiday I stopped being able to lift our baby in & out of bassinets and pack 'n plays, and then getting him onto a changing table became tough, but I was still managing.
Eh, my back got pretty sore with our first kid. This will go away like that did.
But it didn't go away. I went to an orthopedist but nothing they poked and prodded hurt me like I guess it was supposed to, so they didn't seem to think it was that serious (even though I told them I was starting to have trouble caring for my own kids and small things like pulling up my pants was excruciating. being a woman is neat). Then, at the end of January I was walking through the kitchen to toss something in the trash when I tripped on my son's kitchen stool.
"AAAHHHGHHHHGHHHGHHHHHHASSHFHFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
I didn't recognize the screams coming from my own body as I looked up from the floor desperate for help. My eyes had zig zags of lightning flashing across them so bright I couldn't see through it, and it felt like my spine exploded. I wanted the pain to stop so badly I was clawing at the fridge like a wounded animal. Pat came sprinting downstairs and had no idea what happened, and all I could do was yell "UNNNNNGHHHHHHHELP ME" over and over which, oddly enough, did not help. Pretty sure I seriously told him I thought I had paralyzed myself even as I writhed around on the ground.
Eventually Chaps came to take me to the ER but there wasn't much they could do. (I'm breastfeeding and all the good meds would go into the milk.) I very much got the vibe that the folks on call thought I was being dramatic, and everyone kept asking if I'd had an epidural as if that would suddenly destroy me months later (again, being a woman is neat).
Ever since then I've been unable to carry my own baby unless I cradle him down by my hips and shuffle him from surface to surface using the tops of my legs as leverage. Family has had to fly out on multiple occasions when Pat travels because I can't safely be alone with my sons. Riding in the car makes me cry so I drive with the blinkers on, getting up at night has me crawling on the floor, and I've never been more terrified of sneezing in my whole life.
I begged for an MRI but insurance required 6 weeks of PT, and once that was completed I discovered it would still cost me $2,700.00. Thankfully an appointment I'd made with the VA finally rolled around and that doctor took me seriously right away. That was this Monday, and last night I got an MRI of my whole spine.
Will I have fractures like Brittany Mahomes? Still waiting to hear back but I sure hope so, otherwise I'm going to look like a lunatic. Either way, all I know is the pain is real. If I could go back in time I'd have worked on my pelvic floor throughout the whole pregnancy and then continued to afterwards, and I might not be in this situation. I wish that was just a built in part of pregnancy & maternity care because I have heard from SO, SO, SO many other moms going through the same thing. I also wish the answer to so many awful pains & issues related to pregnancy/birth weren't just chalked up to, "Yep, you'll have that."
Me: Hi Dr. My back hurts so much I'm struggling to wipe my own ass and I can't pick up my baby when he needs me.
OBGYN: Oh dang. Yep, that happens.
Me: Hi Dr. I noticed that post partum I've developed a third eyeball between my tits that cries Mountain Dew?
OBGYN: Oh, yep, you'll have that.
Ok, so I do indeed have that but. now what? I don't care if happens to every other woman you see. HELP ME! (Whew, this has been cathartic!)
Chronic pain aside, its downright heartbreaking to not be able to fully parent your baby, and I can only imagine its legit nightmarish if you don't have a support system around to help. In that regard, I've been incredibly lucky from coworkers to friends to family and probably soon Brittany Mahomes who will read this and invite me out to her beach house to recoup with Taylor or something. Here's to hoping the results show my spine is riddled with cracks.
Anyways, much love to ANYONE going through the ringer with back pain because it sucks so much. My DMs are full of Stoolies who've been through the ringer with it. Let 2024 be the year we get our taints super buff and go from there (you too, fellas).