A Broken Back
January 4, 2008
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
So last night my husband came up with the brilliant idea of going to the urgent care and getting pain killers to sell so we can buy milk and diapers for the baby. He toyed with the idea of shooting himself with a nail gun or “missing” and hitting his hand with his framing hammer hard enough to break a bone. He’s done both of these in the past, both accidentally and intentionally, and as he says, that hurts like a bitch. I’m sure it’s difficult to get up the nerve to do such a thing, no matter how hungry the baby is. Since he has back problems anyway from ten years of building houses, he finally decided on complaining of back pain. To make it believable he told them he fell off the roof of our porch while taking down Christmas lights. He did not tell them that he fell off the roof of the house he was building at work, which is much more likely and happens anyway at least once a year, because he’s technically self employed and doesn’t pay dues for worker’s comp like he’s supposed to, so that would have been a mess. Plus they usually do a drug test for anything work related and he self-medicates his anxiety disorders with marijuana.
When he got to the urgent care, they insisted that he immediately go to the nearest hospital by ambulance. When he got to the hospital, they did x-rays and cat scans and found out that he has a broken vertebrae. Yes, he got a real broken back from his fictional fall. Now that was a pretty big shock, but not completely out of the blue, since as I mentioned before he falls off houses on a regular basis, usually when he has to sheet a roof in the winter. Normal houses have a low enough slope on the roof that it’s not such a hazard, but he usually works on high end custom homes that have crazy angles and some have at least one slope that’s close to vertical. For at least three years he has had back pain that floors him once or twice daily. It always passes, but it always comes back, and he has to spend up to 30 minutes on the floor with his feet up waiting for the pain to go away. So they kept him over night and doped him up on morphine. He’s talking to a physical therapist and a neurosurgeon this morning. Not that we can afford either of those options, but as long as he’s there he might as well.
At first I was really worried about this whole situation. Not because of his back, like people might think. He’s tough and if it’s been like that for as long as we think it has, he’s fine. It was because of my car. I have to get a jump start every time I turn the car on. So if his truck is at the urgent care and I don’t have any way to get both cars home, how am I going to get to work in the morning? Luckily, I have my handy dandy check book. Yes, I know, the fines are outrageous and I’m risking being taken to court, but I’m already so much in the negative that it doesn’t really matter so much anymore. I can start to work on digging myself out of this hole when I’m out of survival mode. Right now I have to get to work and feed my kids, period. When I got to the urgent care and found out that he was at the hospital, I panicked until the receptionist handed me his truck keys. I buckled the kids back into the car, pulled his truck around and jumped my car off of it. I remembered that there is an Advance Auto Parts store a few blocks away, so I went straight there and bought a new battery with a check. They installed it for me, so now I am able to start my car by just turning the key! I was so excited the first time I turned it on that I cheered and clapped, which prompted a chorus of cheers from the back seat, though I’m sure the kids weren’t really sure what they were cheering for!
It was hard to sleep, though. Having him next to me in bed is like my security blanket. He makes me feel safe, which is almost impossible when I’m alone. Now I’m exhausted. I didn’t fall asleep until after 2am, and the baby woke up at 5am as usual. I suppose I can catch up on the sleep this weekend, right? Now I'm off to pick him up from the hospital...
When he got to the urgent care, they insisted that he immediately go to the nearest hospital by ambulance. When he got to the hospital, they did x-rays and cat scans and found out that he has a broken vertebrae. Yes, he got a real broken back from his fictional fall. Now that was a pretty big shock, but not completely out of the blue, since as I mentioned before he falls off houses on a regular basis, usually when he has to sheet a roof in the winter. Normal houses have a low enough slope on the roof that it’s not such a hazard, but he usually works on high end custom homes that have crazy angles and some have at least one slope that’s close to vertical. For at least three years he has had back pain that floors him once or twice daily. It always passes, but it always comes back, and he has to spend up to 30 minutes on the floor with his feet up waiting for the pain to go away. So they kept him over night and doped him up on morphine. He’s talking to a physical therapist and a neurosurgeon this morning. Not that we can afford either of those options, but as long as he’s there he might as well.
At first I was really worried about this whole situation. Not because of his back, like people might think. He’s tough and if it’s been like that for as long as we think it has, he’s fine. It was because of my car. I have to get a jump start every time I turn the car on. So if his truck is at the urgent care and I don’t have any way to get both cars home, how am I going to get to work in the morning? Luckily, I have my handy dandy check book. Yes, I know, the fines are outrageous and I’m risking being taken to court, but I’m already so much in the negative that it doesn’t really matter so much anymore. I can start to work on digging myself out of this hole when I’m out of survival mode. Right now I have to get to work and feed my kids, period. When I got to the urgent care and found out that he was at the hospital, I panicked until the receptionist handed me his truck keys. I buckled the kids back into the car, pulled his truck around and jumped my car off of it. I remembered that there is an Advance Auto Parts store a few blocks away, so I went straight there and bought a new battery with a check. They installed it for me, so now I am able to start my car by just turning the key! I was so excited the first time I turned it on that I cheered and clapped, which prompted a chorus of cheers from the back seat, though I’m sure the kids weren’t really sure what they were cheering for!
It was hard to sleep, though. Having him next to me in bed is like my security blanket. He makes me feel safe, which is almost impossible when I’m alone. Now I’m exhausted. I didn’t fall asleep until after 2am, and the baby woke up at 5am as usual. I suppose I can catch up on the sleep this weekend, right? Now I'm off to pick him up from the hospital...
the second coming of Ashlee Ryder!