Life On A Harley: A Dash of Insanity

Mary on New Years Eve just
prior to surgery.

Wow. Its been a bit since I last posted. Things have been, as the title suggests, a bit insane around here. Not that we don't all have occasional moments of driving ourselves to the brink of madness every now and then, but this is too different from those times. This is a 5 alarm, which way is up, pass the scotch and the valium, brass tacks nut farm around here. While it isn't hitting full panic mode yet, the last few weeks have been awful. I knew when I signed up for marriage and children there would be times of trial and frustration, but this isn't in the Dad's Handbook for The Middle Aged Lunatic.

This started January 12th. Mary had a surgery performed on her lower back to relieve the pressure on the disks in her lumbar section of her spine. The procedure seems sound enough, and after querying about this procedure, decided this could really benefit Mary's back pain. The surgery went well, although some slight complications with the location of the vertebrae, the disks, and scar tissue which had formed around some of the disk areas. After surgery we met her in her "penthouse" suite at Mercy Hospital, and left her in good hands. I must say the staff was very helpful, and the doctor explained everything in details we both understood well. The next day I could tell the initial shock to her back was obvious. She could barely move, and although she had managed to walk a couple times, felt pretty sore. The next two days were very much the same, walk, go to the bathroom, lay down, sleep an hour, get up, repeat. The object was to get her moving so that the stiffness would work out and the back could adjust to the clamps now supporting her spine. At the end of her stay at the hospital, Mary was moving around fairly well, although she needed a lot of help with about every aspect of her life.

How to "properly" supervise
yard work at the office.

And that is where the insanity started. As it turned out, I grossly underestimated the amount of help Mary needed, the work load I was carrying, the ability of our daughters to assist, the requirements for Marys care, and my ability remain calm and steady under fire. PFFFFT! The first week home, I think Mary and I got 12 hours sleep in 6 days. My consulting work had taken on new work I had not counted on. The day job was really taking a toll, especially when I had several disagreements with staff over project loads, survey operations, and hiring a new staff surveyor. And to boot, the cats crapped under my desk! The surgery was a success, but Mary needed constant supervision, as she was still quite unsteady just walking to the bathroom. And speaking of bathroom, the potty runs every 90 minutes in the middle of the night were totally unexpected. Even bathing had to be supervised, not to mention keeping Marys lower extremities clean from her bathroom visits. Finally realizing how exhausted Mary and I were, I took last Friday off to get some rest from it all. As a fellow surveyor told me last week, this is the truest test of a relationship.

This is not exactly my idea of
"volunteering".

We visited the doctor tonight, where he examined the incision, answered all of our questions, shared some funny stories about getting lost in Queens (don't ask!) and addressed Mary's prescription needs. Monday night one of the staples started showing some signs of drainage. The clamps are holding well, but a byproduct of that is the pressure being taken off the nerves is allowing those compressed nerves to wake up ans swell a bit. The drainage is fine, fairly normal, no signs of any infection, but to be safe he prescribed an antibiotic. Her physical progress is better than expected, as she only needs one crutch to walk around with. The right leg is still fairly weak, however, with time the strength in that leg is expected to return. She still needs some assistance with bathing, but as her progress increases we gain more confidence. The pain in her lower back for the most part, is gone. While not completely eradicated, her ability to move around, to be mobile, and to enjoy life, increases every day. We are now planning a trip to another NASCAR race, as yet to be determined. We are also looking into a couple overnight trips, just little mom and dad getaways that we discovered last year really helped us feel better about us, each other, and our marriage.

There is still much to be done. The staples holding the incision together have remained for now due to the unexpected drainage. The walker, well, Mary offered to do something with it that I think is physically impossible. In fact - I think if anyone gets near her with a walker, they might be wearing it permanently. For me, just seeing her live relatively pain free after years of back pain has been a true blessing. While it was frustrating at the time, the care and love she needed was more than worth the sleepless nights, the fatigued days, the fret and the worry. We just want to enjoy each other in these later years of life. Maybe be a bit more active, and a little more patient. Mary has been a bit humbled by the need for all the care she needed, but she also realized to get better she would have to put her fears aside and let those things happen. Her goal is to be more mobile and play a bit more active role in the day to day life in our home. Even though it was a bit insane at times, the sacrifice was small but well worth it.

Daytona is only three weeks away, and RIDING season shouldn't be too far off after that....THANK GOODNESS!! I miss my Melissa.