I’m in pain. A lot of it. Something happened to my back on Wednesday and now I’m barely able to walk. The pain is unbelievable sending me through bouts of nausea and tears. For those that know of my previous back issues, this is definitely worse. I’ve hurt before, but nothing like this.
What makes it a little more unbearable is the near unconcern my husband has. He said, “But you’re always hurting.” True and he mocks me saying my body should be condemn, but when a slight turn of my back to the left send the most horrible muscle spasm up to my head, I’d expect a little more caring. I don’t think I’m asking to much.
On Thursday, I asked him to take the girl to school. He didn’t even wake, leaving me to get the kids ready in the morning. I drove her school and cried all the way home as the need to shift gears sent pain throughout my right side.
Friday, he did take her to school. When he got back home, I asked him to water the plants. This means, reaching under the potting bench and turning on the spigot so the drip irrigation can work its magic. It didn’t get done. In the meantime, I got ready to go because he said he was going to take me to the clinic. Little did I know that I’d have to wait for almost 4 hours for that to actually happen.
I wound up at the overcrowded ER at LAC-USC. Nearly 4 hours of sitting in a painful chair as the guy behind me kept jostling our shared back rest. Speaking to other people who had been waiting over 24 hours to see a doctor, I got a sense of dread. Wave after wave of nausea came over me, from the ridiculous amounts of pain spreading from my back to other parts of my body. I asked for some nausea medicine only to be blown off. Getting up to puke, made me lose my seat; my options were to either stand along the wall or sit outside, possibly missing them call my name. I called him to come get me.
Seeing as how we live 7 minutes away from the hospital, even taking into account getting the kid’s shoes on, I didn’t expect that when I called him 20 minutes later he’d claim that they were almost ready to leave. Almost. He got me nearly 45 minutes after my first request. No one will ever accuse him of punctuality, but since I was in pain, my delirium made me assume he’d act on some urgency.
Now we’re at this morning. The kids are awake, I’m starving and want coffee. When I asked for breakfast and coffee he moaned. In fairness, he did give me the skillet, but I wept as I made the coffee and breakfast for me and the kids. My daughter has been helpful. She got stuff from the fridge for me. But the most painful thing of all, as she watched me make breakfast she said, “I didn’t know parents could cry, mama.”
The In sickness and in health? by Anika Malone, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.