Ok, Lord...

I'm no Angie, and I don't have deep lessons learned from my circumstances yet. But let me tell you, I know they're coming!

On Sunday Brian hurt his back as he leaned in toward a 5th grader to drive home the point "God gave us the greatest gift when he gave us Jesus" Boom! There went his back. He managed to crawl to a storage room and collapse without notice, so after church, his friend Greg and I were looking for him. His back had been bothering him for a couple of weeks, getting worse, so I said to Greg "he had to change out of his shepherd costume-if his back went out, can you check the bathroom?" After 10 minutes of looking, Greg opened the storage unit door "here he is!" in the dark, on the floor.

I raced home to find meds from the last time this happened and while I was gone, the medical team at church determined he needed an ambulance. They took him out on a gurney just as church was letting out, so 600 people watched him get loaded up, including our kids. Brian was embarrassed, the kids were upset and I wasn't even there.

He got dose after dose of valium, morphine, and fentenol in the ER and nothing worked. He was writhing, yelling, twisting and crying in pain and nothing relieved it. I felt so helpless and sad. After changing to the "strongest thing we've got", Brian was able to relax for a bit. Little twinges would send him grabbing the railing of his bed, but otherwise it seemed to be calming down.

The doctor said he was discharged and the nurse started to raise his bed. YIKES!!!! It all came back in full force. Then someone realized that after 4 liters of saline, he hadn't gone to the bathroom, so they got concerned and ordered an MRI.

The MRI showed a pinching of a nerve in his spine, as well as a herniated disk. The Orthopedic who looked at it said he is a conservative doc who doesn't like to operate if he doesn't have to. He said B has a bad back, but surgery would change his quality of life-like not being able to pick up Zach or maybe not go fly-fishing.

So B was admitted and has since continued to have bout after bout like the ones in the ER. It gets quite depressing to not be able to manage pain WHEN YOU'RE IN THE HOSPITAL!!! What in the world happens when he comes home??

He's so doped up that today he asked me where we got the huge plate of (invisible) cookies, and when had I had the time to clean his hospital room?

He got a spinal cortisone shot today which has an 80% chance of helping, and may take 4-5 days to kick in. For 5-10% people, it makes things horribly worse...
The shot itself was the worst pain Brian said he's EVER experienced, and he's had kidney stones, a root canal gone wrong, and the ER stuff on Sunday.

I know I'll have lessons learned from this down the road, but for now, I'm at a loss.

Tonight as I tucked her in for the 3rd night w/out dad, Torrey asked if he could die from this. Earlier Leah looked out the window and realized B's car was in the driveway during the day when it should be at work. She started to cry as she stared out the window, then dropped to her knees still in her little school uniform jumper, folded her hands and started to pray, all without seeing I was watching her.

I try not to project too far into the future because it gets very overwhelming. I'm tired. Sorry this is a downer of a blog...