Love will get me through

 

My wife fractured her spine and was in great pain. She was offered paracetamol and ibuprofen by the first two doctors she consulted on the phone, even though she told them she suffered from osteoporosis. After two months, a third doctor asked to see her and he thought that she might have fractured her spine. He prescribed a low dose of codeine and ordered an x-ray but when she rang the hospital for an appointment my wife was told that, because of the pandemic, she would have to wait. After three months she got her x-ray, but only after we called 111 and they called an ambulance. Her first lumbar vertebrae had fractured badly, this compression fracture was agonising and she could no longer stand straight. A new and experienced doctor took on my wife’s case. The doctor prescribed a higher dose of codeine and this meant that Kay slept for most of the next two weeks, rarely getting out of bed. We received aids and a physio visited once a week. I was left to do all the domestic work and began to feel exhausted. My wife thought I was hiding my feelings as I often do but the truth of the matter was I needed to do what was necessary to get us both through. Regardless of how I felt, with our daughters in lockdown miles away, I just had to grit my teeth and get the job done. Cooking was the hardest part of what I needed to do since I’m not good at it and find it extremely stressful. So at our daughter’s suggestion, we tried ready meals and then frozen deliveries and that took some of the pressure off. My wife can now move around more freely so we make the evening meal together. This is a big help but she now walks with a stoop and has difficulty breathing because her spine is compacting her lungs and stomach. It will be many months before she can recover some mobility and in the meantime, I will have to be brave and help her through this process, no matter how I feel. She will be able to lean on me in every sense of the word and I will lean on my friends and family to keep me strong and to smile when I feel like crying.

 

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