Taking the First Step

It isn’t always easy taking the first step but when things take a change in your life, you often have to step up to the plate, take a deep breath and try not to holler or scream.

When the man of my life was preparing for surgery, I was faced with the inevitability that I would be driving home.  I know that I am a good driver with years of experience but years of being married to a man who drives us most of the time everywhere plus the fact that I suffer from double vision when my eyes grow tired left me a bit anxious and concerned about the traveling home with a man under the influence of good drugs.

So I talked myself out of it.  I know that this does not work for some people who may need a lot of good medications to help their anxiety.  Fortunately for me, a good talking to generally does the trick.  Not to say that I did not toy with the idea of asking various friends to drive us or to come and pick us up after everything was done.

When we were driving home the next day after the man’s surgery, I told him that I was thinking of a blog.  His response, “It is not going to be about me, is it”.  I assure him that it might be a bit about him, meanwhile, I was thinking that it was going to be more about me and the battle of my various little minds fighting to get control of another event in my life.

Recently, I told a friend in the supermarket that I was at the point of just wanting to get off the world and let someone else take care of things.  It has been a busy, somewhat difficult couple of years. Not only for me but for various members of my family which in turn affected me in some various fashion.    

With the loss of our two cats, two sisters, a husband undergoing surgery, and new tasks at work, it is no wonder that I am tired. One of my sisters left quite quickly on her way to feed the chickens while a younger sister finally passed after a long illness.  I have been left injured but looking at my list, it is certainly a small one.  For some individuals, it could be considered a relative small list with simple things on it.  After all, we are born, we live and we die.

It is after all, how we handle it, how we react, how we respond to those in our circle, to those who are experiencing the same event.  Getting back to driving home after my husband’s surgery, my question was how I going to react and respond to the responsibility of getting us home safely.  Wisely, my sweetheart arranged for us to spend the night knowing that everything takes longer to get done than generally what is expected.  He was right, about after not being able to leave the hospital until dark. It was pitch black when I drove us to the lodging on the hospital campus.  I sighed thankfully when I checked in and saw two twin beds in our private room and a common living room and kitchen/dining area for all to use in the rest of the building.  Things were looking up.

 After my husband was settled in one of the twin beds, I parked the car, hauled in the luggage, the cooler with ice packs, grabbed my turkey sandwich and went to sit in dining room with a tall glass of water, and my cell phone. Ah, life in the fast lane. I unloaded the ice packs into the freezer of one of the refrigerator, placed sandwiches, muffins and four oranges, two bananas in our food bin as well. That was the relaxing part of my evening.

I can’t say that the rest of the evening and early morning was a blur nor did it go quickly. I set my cell phone alarm on for every four hours to administer the pain meds.  I would mention to friends later that it was like having a new baby as I would have to get dressed (to go out into the common room) about every twenty minutes to the ice packs in the freezer  so we could continue the icing per doctor/hospital orders.  Silly me, I had put on a gown for sleeping when I should have remain completely dressed for the duration of our stay.

Up and down, up and down all night.  Lucky me, poor little husband who wasn’t really sleeping either with the all of the icing of his wounds and taking his pain meds.  We survived and with lots of coffee for me we headed out in the morning.  Thank you, God, Goddess, Angels for the sunshine and dry roads home was all I had to say. 

I don’t drink coffee, I don’t like coffee but coffee was my friend that morning. My bosom buddy, my drug of choice and it certainly helped to quiet the various little minds that were trying to help me on the road.  Really, you are going to drive all the way home?  How much sleep did you get? I hope that your husband is able to direct you out of town.  Once out of town, another cup of coffee which I could not drink until I stopped at the rest stop when it was lukewarm and I downed it all down.  Yes, I am one of those people who cannot pat my head and chew gum at the same time.  I am unable to drive unless I have both hands firmly on the wheel, eyes ahead or checking my mirrors.  So hence, I had to wait until I stopped at a place where I could devote all of my attention to the cup of coffee turning colder in my hands. Ugh, coffee is really bad when it is getting cold.  But for a brain that it would make more alert, I was willing to drink it and then we were on our way.

Hooray, we made it home.  The man is healing, I slept that night 14 hours and let him deal with the pain meds to be taken every four hours. Taking the first step was letting him be responsible for self-care while I recharged.  Taking the next step may be harder, allowing myself to cry when I need to, to say uncle when I have had enough, to realize that I really can do it. 

As for the various little minds in my head, I told them to take a holiday. For I found that taking the first step was all I needed to do.