Pain in the Butt

I want to tell you all [and I want to point out that I didn't use the Southern contraction just now] exactly how my lumbar herniated disc feels. I could claim it's for documenting the qualitative aspects of illness...but I am thinking that maybe my desire to tell comes from a desire for sympathy. Or at least as a desire to absolve my guilt for sitting on my butt for several weeks. Actually, that last one is pretty real. I feel like I should be working on my beach bod or de-cluttering the apartment, or maybe watering my plants. But, no. Butt, yes.

So. Whatever the whys, here's the whats.

It feels like pelvic cramps of the monthly menstrual variety, except confined to the right side. Sometimes the cramping extends from my hip/butt down the posteriolateral [i.e. back outer] side of my right leg all the way down to my ankle.
It feels like the femoral head is bruising my hip socket, or that the femur is a little dislocated--like something isn't quite right but can easily be popped back into place [unfortunately, there's no easy popping to do].
Sometimes it feels like I have been sitting on my leg and it has fallen asleep (sort-of like an empty sensation in the limb) and now is waking up with all of those pins and needles. Mostly, though, the pins and needles are just on the sole of my foot. And maybe the dorsolateral [top outer] side too.
If I stand for too long, [or if I've slept for more than 2 hours in a row] it feels like a little man is dancing all around my hip joint with a pair of miniature ice-picks in his hands. Sharp, shooting pain. Curse that little man.
Very occasionally, it feels like my right leg is weaker than my left, that I might lose my balance and fall. On clinical examination, it's not actually weaker, but it feels like that.
And lately, if I walk more than, like, 10 feet, my hip joint feels like it is rotting and falling apart inside my body [I have a good imagination, okay], and that--on top of the near-constant ache--sets off a string of almost-formed expletives inside my head. I mean, really, just knock me out, k?

Mark the Man has been very supportive and compassionate and sweet, and from this experience I can really tell that we are still perfect idiots in love [or that I'm a nurse to my core, and he's a sweetie to his core]. Because, unfortunately, he has got some super-tender tissue on the sole of his right foot that is in various stages of blistering, so it is painful for him to walk, too. And then we get into silly arguments: "No, honey, you shouldn't get up; let me get you an ice pack," "I can't let you do that; let me bring you a heating pad," "No, I FORBID you from getting up to help me. Stay right where you are."
Like I said, perfect idiots.
I guess it's helpful to find some sappiness in the heart of pain.