Last Thursday and Friday are long gone. They were useless days spent in pain. My back is totally destroyed and I’m headed to the doctor’s office in the early morning hours tomorrow to see if it can either be fixed or heavily medicated. When I look back on my grandmother (specifically) and remember her using a walker, with tennis balls on the bottom, I now envy her. I wish I had one. I’m having trouble standing, sitting, turning, everything! The only thing I can do is lay still staring at the ceiling with a heating pad below me and a book in hand. Everything else is too painful.
This is only the physical pain though. There is a good deal of mental pain attached to it as well. Two days of being resigned to the bed or a sofa have not had the greatest effect on my ability to be a father. When I have a day off it would be desirable if I could clean up a little bit: take out the garbage, do anything at all that might help on my “day off.” Alas! I cannot. There is nothing I can do.
My son is crying: I can’t bend down (or even get up) to pick him up. When I’m trying to stand I can’t hold him. When I’m laying down I can’t protect him enough from falling off (unless I hold him too tight and too close). The other day he was wearing a shirt that inquired about the necessity of superheroes because of how awesome his father is. No longer. Dad has been hit by a healthy dose of a power-draining substance weakening him to the point of immobility. Dad wants to be a superhero… but right now he needs one. Guess who the superhero always was (and certainly is now)… MOM! Thanks for taking care of your two boys!