"Because the drugs never work ..."

I am living some crazy busy days this fall. It's so unlike me!

Saturday was unusually fun ... I drove to Traveler's Rest, parked my car at a Sleep Inn, and rode with Sisters Laura and Melody to North Carolina. First stop was Hendersonville, where we rode around for several hours, looking at homes for sale. (They are hoping to sell their house in GA, and move to the mountains ASAP. I have to say, I think it's a marvelous idea!) We stopped at an apple orchard and tortured Melody by making her pose for pictures. Then we headed to Asheville and found more houses for sale. Now that may sound like a recipe for a very boring afternoon, but I was with Laura and Melody. Never a dull moment! When the sun went down, we headed into downtown Asheville and found some food and wine. I love spending time with my long-lost sister. Wine or no wine.

On Sunday, I tried to sleep late and talk to my other sister, only she wasn't answering her phone. I ran some errands, and saw Adam and Brandy for a little while. They celebrated their 2nd anniversary on Monday! I went to bed early, but spent most of the night awake ... Jimmy had a terrible time with pain that night. The spasms in his back were horrible, and seemed to come one after another for several hours. At one point, I dressed to take him back to the ER for some pain relief. (He let his pain meds get low by not calling the doctor's office on Friday. He was warned. He chose to disregard my wisdom and experience in this matter.) He decided to take his last dose around midnight, and see if he could tough it out until the office opened Monday morning. I made him take a double dose of the muscle relaxant, and we did sleep a little bit.

I spent Monday being Nurse Dawn ... well, except for that one hour when I was locked outside, being eaten alive by global warming- sized mosquitoes. After picking up new narcotics and drugging the man, I spent some time outside planting a few fall flowers. That was right about the same time Jimmy decided to fire up a few podcasts of Bob & Sheri and doze off.

And yeah, I was locked out. I looked around for a key in the basement (Which is NEVER locked. Heads up, burglars!), checked out the garage windows and decided that IF I cut the screens to climb through the cobwebs and grime, I'd likely break my neck trying to climb over all the hoarded crap he stores beneath the windows. Forget THAT. And yeah, my cell phone was in my purse, as usual. I had only one option: I had to ring the doorbell a million times, hope he'd get aggravated that I wasn't asnwering the door, and then he'd somehow stand up and make his way downstairs to let me in.

This part took close to an hour. I'd ring, ring, ring the doorbell ... then I'd pound, pound, pound on the door, or the window next to the door. I'd sit for awhile, admiring my new flowers. Then I'd do it all over again. I started to wonder if we might miss the 3:45 MRI appointment, since I'd not even had a chance to tell him it was scheduled.

It's a good thing I didn't have to pee.

I'm typing this, so you already know I did make it back inside. I heard him laughing as he made his way down the stairs to let me in. (The humor was lost on me, at this point.) He said he thought the doorbell was sound effects on the podcasts he was listening to, and he thought all the door and window-banging was me, "hanging pictures". I said, "Where did you think I might be hanging 40 pictures??!!" His answer, "I guess THAT'S why you didn't answer the phone when it was ringing just now."

Dur. He claims all the narcotics have NO EFFECT on the clarity of his mind. I will save this little episode for proof otherwise.

Anyway. We made it to the MRI. Still waiting on results, hopefully today. He's back to work, walking like a pretzel. He says as long as he takes the oxycodone every 4 hours, the pain is manageable. Between the back issues, and Emilie's head cold and cough from hell, I will carry on as Nurse Dawn for at least the remainder of this week.

To be continued ...

-----

Kathy & Emilie: That personality test captured you both PERFECTLY. Wow.