I raised three kids and my neck was fine. Two days a week with the grandkids and I can barely turn my head.

My granddaughter is eleven months old. I watch her on Tuesdays and Thursdays while my daughter goes back to work.

It is the best part of my week. I mean that.

I feed her. I hold her. I carry her around the house on my hip. I sit on the floor and play with her. I rock her for naps. I bend over the crib to put her down and bend over the crib to pick her back up. I look down at her little face probably a hundred times a day because she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I include my own children in that.

Six weeks into watching her, my neck started to go.

•••

I'm 64. I raised three kids in the 80s and 90s. I carried them, nursed them, chased them. I don't remember my neck being a problem. Maybe it was and I was too young to notice. Maybe it wasn't because I was thirty and my body could handle it.

I'm not thirty anymore.

The tightness starts at the base of my skull after about two hours with her. By the afternoon it's moved into my shoulders and upper back. By the time my daughter picks her up at five, I've got a headache that lasts the rest of the evening.

I don't tell my daughter any of this.

Because if I tell her my neck hurts from watching the baby, she'll feel guilty. And if she feels guilty, she'll find someone else. And I am not letting someone else have my Tuesdays and Thursdays.

•••

But it's been getting worse.

Last month she was fussing and I went to pick her up out of the playpen and something grabbed in my neck so hard I almost dropped to my knees. I didn't drop her. But I stood there for a second holding her against my chest with my eyes closed, waiting for it to pass.

My daughter was in the other room. She didn't see it.

A week later it happened again — different day, same motion. Bending over, picking up, and that sharp grab at the base of my skull. This time my daughter saw my face when she came in the room. She said "Mom, are you okay?" I said I was fine.

She said "Mom, stop picking her up if it hurts."

I said it doesn't hurt.

It hurts.

•••

I went to see my doctor. He looked at my neck and said "it's the repetitive flexion — you're bending and looking down too much. The muscles at the base of your skull are all tightened up." He said something about how at my age the tissue doesn't recover the way it used to.

I don't remember all the medical words but I remember "repetitive flexion" because that's exactly what it is — bending over that crib fifty times a day.

He told me to stretch. He said I could try physical therapy.

I said I watch my granddaughter two days a week and I don't have time for physical therapy on those days and I'm not giving up the days.

He said then try heat.

I've been using a heating pad for years for my back. I tried putting it on my neck. Same story every woman on the internet already knows — it slides off, it doesn't reach the base of my skull, and it loses heat in ten minutes. I'd hold it there with my hand but then I've only got one hand and I'm supposed to be watching a baby.

I tried asking my husband to rub my neck. He has arthritis in his hands. He lasted about ninety seconds.

I looked into seeing a chiropractor. $85 a visit. My insurance doesn't cover it. And the relief apparently lasts about three days which means I'd need to go before every Tuesday and every Thursday. That's $680 a month for something that doesn't even hold.

I'm on a fixed income. That's not happening.

I'm on a fixed income. That's not happening.

•••

After my daughter said "Mom, stop picking her up if it hurts," I couldn't stop thinking about it. Not because she was wrong. Because she was right. And if she could see it, it was worse than I'd been letting myself believe.

That night I was on the couch with the heating pad on my neck. It slid off. Again. The heat was already fading anyway.

I picked up my phone. Not looking for a miracle. Just looking for something — anything — that would hold heat at the base of my skull and stay there. That's all I wanted. Something that doesn't slide off.

I scrolled past everything I'd already seen. Vibrating heated neck massagers. Cervical pillows. Heated wraps that sit on your shoulders. Everything designed for the middle of the neck.

I was about to put the phone down when I found a small company I'd never heard of. They made one thing — a heated neck shiatsu massager shaped to sit right at the base of the skull. Not just sitting on my shoulders. But the exact spot I keep rubbing.

It was called "Lanarie Knead Relief."

Costed less than one chiropractor visit. I almost didn't order it. I almost talked myself out of it the way I talk myself out of everything that's just for me. But worst case, they had a money back guarantee.

I thought about what my daughter said. And I thought about Tuesdays and Thursdays.

And I ordered it.

I almost cried. Not because of the gift. Because she knew, and she didn't ask me to stop coming.

•••

I've been using it for about four months now.

I keep it on the rocking chair. When the baby goes down for her nap, I just sit back and close my eyes. It's warm and it stays where I need it — I don't have to hold it, I don't have to adjust it. Fifteen minutes and I can feel my neck let go.

The first time I used it I almost fell asleep in the chair. Not because I was tired. Because my neck wasn't hurting and I didn't know what to do with that feeling. It had been so long.

The headaches on Tuesday and Thursday evenings are mostly gone now. I can pick her up without bracing myself. I can bend over the crib without holding my breath. Last week I sat on the floor and played with her for an hour and got up without wincing.

I'm still not as strong as I was at thirty. But I don't need to be. I just need to get through Tuesdays and Thursdays without my neck stopping me.

I'm still not as strong as I was at thirty. But I don't need to be. I just need to get through Tuesdays and Thursdays without my neck stopping me.

•••

My granddaughter turns one next month. She's starting to walk. Which means soon I'll be bending down even more, chasing her, catching her.

I am not missing that.

And I am not letting my neck be the reason someone else watches her while I sit at home.

If you're watching your grandkids and your neck is paying for it — if you've been hiding it because you don't want your kids to worry or find someone else — you don't have to give up the days.

You just need something for the neck that does the holding.

This is what my daughter gave me. It's what I'd give you.