It's just a little thing...

It's called a tailbone, or a sacrum, or a coccyx. One website says, "The coccyx provides slight support for the pelvic organs but actually is a bone of little use." So if it is so useless, why does it hurt so bad when you ride down the stairs on it?
That's exactly what I did yesterday. I've been walking down those stairs every morning for the last 6 1/2 years. Suddenly I forgot how... or something. My foot went flying off the step, I landed on my useless tailbone and bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce...down the stairs, I went.
A few seconds was all it took to realize that I was in excruciating pain. I did eventually recover my wits enough to get up, but my moaning and groaning brought all the kids rushing to the stairs from whatever room they were in in the house. My husband, who had been contentedly making coffee in the kitchen rushed in and asked the typical male question, "What happened?"
I tried to sit down, but screamed. I tried to lie down, but that didn't work either. I knelt by the couch and figured while I was on my knees, it wouldn't hurt to ask for some help.
I finally called my sister, who broke her tailbone last year. She assured me that if I hadn't broken mine, I had at least bruised it really badly. She told me it took six to eight weeks to heal. For days she couldn't sit down. She spent a month sitting on a donut.
I took large amounts of Tylenol and tried to find a position to lie in that would allow me to breathe without gasping. While I was trying to rest, my friend Kelli called. She had broken her tailbone years ago. She left me with the assurance, "You think it hurts now, wait until you wake up tomorrow! Whoa, are you going to be sore!"
She was right.
Thank God we got that waterbed last Christmas (see post from last Christmas. ;)
If you're going to bruise your tailbone, sleeping on a heated waterbed that conforms to your backside is probably about the most comfortable thing you can do. Of course, I still moaned every time I moved, but in between times wasn't so bad.
Today, I can actually sit down, as long as I lean forward. I think it must not be broken or I would have spent the day on all fours. But standing up after sitting for awhile is about as much fun as having toothpicks pounded under you finger nails.
Kelli and I have a scale that we rank our pain on. Between the two of us, we have 16 kids, so labor is one of those pains that ranks pretty high on the list. This pain comes in just above labor. (The only other thing we've experienced so far that is worse than labor is kidney stones.)
This morning, when I started down the stairs, I grabbed the railing and held on with both hands while navigating my descent very slowly. I made it all the way to the bottom, while still on my feet. That's progress.
Hopefully tomorrow will be even better.