The day my husband crawled in the
door on all four limbs, unable to stand changed our lives forever. My big
strong man couldn't stand, I lifted and drug him, moving him the few inches
required all my strength. “What happened?” I shrieked, when I saw him at the
door, his pain so great he could only get out, “Accident...at work.”
“Let’s get you back in the truck; I’ll
take you to the emergency room, right now.” How could they let him go home like
that; I wondered, as I went to pull his truck closer to the house. At times
like this my mind whirs; what do I need to do to get him back in the truck, oh,
my God what’s wrong with him, I need to run back in the house and turn off the
stove.
“No!” His exasperated cry startled
me. “Honey, we have to get you to the doctor! You need help.” He collapsed on
the front step, his head on the step. “Please, let me take you to the doctor,” I
yelled. Kirt’s dislike of hospitals and doctors and avoidance of same was
legendary, so I slipped straight into frantic. “Open the door,” his voice
demanded and plead simultaneously. “No, I don’t know what to do for you. I can’t
help you. You need a doctor!”
“Been. OPEN, the door!” Okay, that
put a different color on things, but now wasn't the time for questions. I
opened the door. He couldn't lift himself, so I asked, “Are you sure you don’t
want to go to the urgent care or the ER?” “Grab my shoulders, pull me in,” he
replied. I took his left arm at the
shoulder, but he yelled in pain, both sides had to be lifted equally to get in
the door, I tried to lift while straddling him. This proved awkward, so with a
big towel slipped around his chest and under his arms I lifted and pulled all my might and he pushed propelling himself through the door.
On the floor in a heap like an
injured puppy he panted and moaned. At this point in my life I didn't cry, so
only my bloodshot eyes revealed my horror at seeing my hero broken. The table
and chairs had to be moved and the coffee table. He needed a clear path to the
sofa. How could a doctor send him home like this? What the hell happened? “Oh,
oh, oh,” my big guy cried. “You rest here. Let’s put this towel under your
head. Try taking some deeper breaths.”
Kirt always had that farm boy
commonsense, so he worked with it, taking deep breaths, relaxing as much as he
could. The towel under his head felt better. My good guy said, “Thanks.”
By the time I had everything out of
the way, he started to crawl on his hands and knees, few
feet later he collapsed, so we did the same thing with deep breathing and the
towel under his head. “You say a doctor saw you,” I commented without expecting
an answer.
Just five years earlier we bought
our little house on tens acres. We filled it with horses, cows, chickens, dogs
and flowers. My husband always wanted me to stay home, so he gave me what I
loved. The place demanded more work than I could imagine, so each day I scheduled
my chores. Kirt came home to see me struggling to clean up the barn. In twenty
minutes the man had the whole job done, smiled at me and said, “Let’s have
dinner.” At the time it made me feel weak and incompetent, but I admired his
strength and the ease with which he got things done. He took care of me.
On the sofa at last, I had all I
could handle to not bombarded him with questions. How do you get home in this
condition? What kind of doctor would let you go home like this? What is
happened? It hadn’t taken much to figure out his back hurt, but damn, this
seemed extreme. Once, the hood of a car slammed on Kirt’s thumb, he had to pull
it out. The indentation of the hood remained on his thumb for a long time to
come, all he did was shake it off and go on about his business. This is no cry
baby guy.
“Going down the Eisenhower I hit a
pothole, the seat bottomed out. Pain shot through my legs. By the time I got
back to the shop they were numb.” They took me to a clinic in Cicero. The doctor
gave me this prescription for pain pills and a couple of days off.” Kirt’s face
was still tight with pain, but he had gotten his breath back.
From that day in 1988 he never had
a pain free day in his life.
No comments:
Post a Comment