Step One

  August 18, 2021 - September 19, 2021

It's been awhile since I've written out some thoughts. Lately, thinking is a lot of what I've been doing. I started thinking about writing stuff down on June 21, a Monday, but thinking was as far as I got that day. I thought it might be prudent. Not that I want to look back fondly on this new path we've found ourselves on, but to have it to maybe, I don't know, learn (?) from it? Maybe to be able to figure stuff out, realize what some of my feelings meant in hindsight. I don't know. 

Here goes.  

Monday the 21st of June happened to be the day before Hubby's birthday. The next day was the day we started doing some heavy, stressful stuff. I say "we" as I'm part of a team of two, me and my husband of 22+ years of marriage. This is where the whole "sickness and health" part of the marriage comes into play. I felt compelled to write some thoughts and feelings down after seeing a "heavy" post someone made on FB. I just never did it on that day.

The post I read and saved was that of a meme. It talks about dreaming of never being called resilient again, being exhausted by strength and needing support for ones OWN self. Of wanting to have softness and ease once again and being back amongst others without being congratulated on how hard one can survive a hit. It really struck a chord with me.

Quite frankly, I'm tired of being strong, I want to be curled up in a pile of heavy covers in the dark with a fan on and some ambient noise in the background and sleep for maybe a month. I yearn for the days when stuff was not like it is now...

I cherish everyone who has said positive words and offered help more than I can say or show. Folks have been so kind and caring, bringing or sending food, checking in on us publicly and under the radar so as to not be intrusive (no one has been intrusive at all...please, keep asking - hey, how are you - hey, how are you feeling today, hey, how is hubs doing? What are things like...they mean we've, let me rephrase... they mean HE hasn't been forgotten), the cards people have sent or dropped off, the wildflowers picked and arranged to bring some light into the dark, etc. The list goes on and for that I almost feel unworthy. 

However, being as how all of this began after the world was hit with a pandemic, being sociable  and seeing folks face to face has been near to impossible. Good grief. It's been a serious wrench in the works; let's be diagnosed with this awful disease and throw in the fact that there's a virus out there also wanting to and could kill you. How about for a person with a severely compromised immune system to boot? 

We've still not seen our folks/families because of COVID-19. But I digress. 

Backtracking, June is getting a little too far ahead, so, let's start out when stuff  got going in "chapter two". 

Monkey Wrench in the works...early in the year, 2021. Beginnings.

 I don't have a date here, just a remembrance. 

Sam's Club - Sam's Club starting with Covid I think began a pick-up option for customers. We have an upstairs bathroom that had (we've been working on it so past tense - HAD) an old pale pink/beige toilet in desperate need of replacing. It had some issues and was kind of low-down to the ground, just old and needing an upgrade.. Covid being around, we weren't exactly having guests over, but with Covid, we'd both worked in the upstairs bedroom from time to time. Hubs had gotten a standing desk and a treadmill and worked up there from time to time. He has a trainer up there too for days when it was too rainy or too cold to get some exercise. 

I was browsing Sam's Club one morning and laughingly said to hubs that I could get a toilet pick-up. Do it! was the resounding response, so I did.

He went and did the pick-up that day - I want to say it was February, (It was actually January, I found out recently looking back at receipts) but would need to go and look at my receipt to confirm. We were both tickled that we could order a toilet online and the store would bring it and our other stuff we'd ordered online out to our SUV and load it up for us. 

We got it in the garage where it sat for a short time before we had time to get to work on replacing the old one upstairs with it. I'd said that I wanted to help. Time got in the way and we hadn't quite gotten around to replacing it. 

Over one weekend soon after we got it, though, hubs went up there, late February/early March and started on it. That was the day he hurt himself.

He had gotten the original toilet separated from the floor and in the process of moving it realized the tank had water in it still. Hearing/feeling it slosh, he twisted to catch it as he was moving it away from where it'd been and moved the wrong way. In hindsight, he said he wound up lying down on the floor for a while after he got hurt. 

The pain never went away.

 

March, 2021

March 2021

March rolled on and we went camping for our anniversary weekend. There's a fabulous park down on the bay about 40 minutes or so from home. Our anniversary was that coming Saturday. Brandon had been using topical pain relief and Alleve to help with the pain. I'd gone home to feed the birds that Friday. 

Our local college was hosting a drive through COVID vaccination clinic that same Friday and part of me thought about driving past it to see how many cars were there to get their vaccine, but went back to the campground the way I came. 

When I got back and settled in, I saw a message from a neighbor who works there, on our neighborhood FB page saying to come get the vaccine, that the college would be giving them away until 3 that afternoon. I went ahead and asked though - what are the restrictions? I knew we didn't meet the criteria, age, infirm, etc., but he told me the restrictions anyway confirming what I'd suspected already. 

Lo and behold, another FB page had an announcement that someone else who also didn't fit the criteria had gotten HER vaccination. 

Queue flurry of messages from various people also on FB  with their own questions, etc. Next, I hear from two neighbors saying that their loved ones were waiting in line and one of them herself was on her way to get her vaccine. They'd tossed out the restrictions (you did have to be at least 16). More likely it was due to the targeted demographic not being met. I looked at hubs, he looked at me and we decided to pack up and see if we could get ours. 

Loaded the doggo's in their crates and headed up there (we had no idea how long we'd have to wait and we didn't want to leave the dogs alone in the camper). Took maybe 25 minutes to get there. 

The college had cordoned off all the gates but one and were directing traffic in through it. Very efficient, very quick moving traffic into the gates. There were checkpoints set up to get paperwork to fill out, pick up an admission ticket, etc. We both got our jabs, waited the requisite 15 minutes after the jab with an appointment card and our vaccine card to come back in few weeks to get our second and off we went. 

Amazing! We'd honestly thought we'd have to wait a lot longer to actually get our vaccines. 

We celebrated 22 years of marriage the next day. 

The pain continued - middle of his back and his right side. Roll onto the end of the month and making an appointment with a Bone and Joint doctor after a visit or two with a chiropractor which didn't help. 

March 31st was his ortho appointment after which he attended a few PT appointments which only seemed to make things worse.