A Very Merry Christmas....... Sort of....

I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas and wish you bright new year.

This Christmas wasn't a Christmas we would like to repeat anytime soon as it was spent all day in the emergency room. But in several ways, it was a good Christmas -- just not one we want to repeat.

George had been having quite a bit of lower back pain lately but he felt pretty good Christmas Eve. We had a great laid back Christmas Eve dinner with my sister and her family and George seemed like everything was fine. Later that evening after our company had gone, a cough did him in. Who would've thought a simple cough would be the nail in the coffin so to speak? But it was; that one cough caused something in his back to go off kilter enough to pinch a nerve. He was in horrible pain and barely able to move. Something like this (only much less painful) happened one other time since we've been married and it greatly improved in a day or two, so we didn't go to the hospital right then thinking it would be better in the morning. Christmas Eve night was one long miserable, sleepless night.

Looking back on the matter, I should have insisted George go to the ER as soon as I knew he was suffering like this. If you are ever crawling on the floor in agony, unable to walk it's probably not the kind of pain that will go away on it's own. Go to the hospital for help (and the good drugs) sooner, rather than later.

So, Christmas morning we went to the ER and called our in-laws to cancel dinner. George really lucked out with medical personnel in his family; both brothers and his mother are nurses. So was his grandma. While George clearly did not get the nursing gene passed on to him, he is very grateful that there are so many in his family that did. One of his brother's met us at the ER; it's a real comfort to have some company in there with you and especially good to have someone that knows something about medicine.

After a round of the good IV pain medication an exam and a strong exhortation to follow up with George's family doctor on Monday we left.

As miserable as George was and the inconvenience of spending a day in the ER, on the way home mulling the day, over almost at the same moment we both expressed how grateful and blessed we were.   What first made me express my gratitude was the realization that I could've been driving home alone from the hospital. I mean I actually thought -- "what if I were going home, alone and leaving George there? And, not to recover. How many wives have had to make the long lonely trip home because their husband died? When you look at it from that perspective, anything short of that is a good day. We got to talking over the day and decided we were so very thankful that we had caring, supportive and helpful families, that we had health insurance to help with the cost, and there was a hospital to go to and that we won't be without food or shelter because George won't be working for a while. We are truly blessed.

Christmas night when I closed my eyes to sleep nothing came to mind but all of our blessings and how good God is to us  Sure, our day didn't go as planned and George had an awfully long, hard time of it, but honestly that wasn't what came to mind. Only the good things.