Falling Back

Usually, I love Halloween. It's changing for me because my kids are no longer little and dressing up for school or for trick-or-treating. But, still... this year's Halloween, like so many things this year, sucked.

Sammy and his friend, Julia, had been planning this great Halloween party for weeks. The 'usual crowd' (about 10 kids, half guys, half girls) was meeting after school, hanging out then watching some scary movies that Sammy & I rented on Thursday. Then they were all going to go to a haunted house, and then, if time, a scary corn maze, then back to Julia's for more scary movies.

I had a PT appointment at 1:30pm, but left work about 11am to pick up my repaired car. I then had to go to the mall to the Verizon store to find out why Sammy's new phone has a black mark on its screen. They said it's a stress crack, so not a manufacturer defect, but they were going to give me a new phone for $50 even though we didn't get insurance on the darn thing. Sammy had it in his pocket all day at school, even though he is NOT supposed to, and somehow it happened that day. Unfortunately, after waiting for a very long time while the woman at Verizon went through all the activities necessary to transfer to a new phone for Sammy, when she took the hard case off Sam's phone and the new phone out of the box, she realized she had the plain ol' Voyager and Sam has the new version, the Voyager Titanium. And, of course, they were out of stock on the Titanium one. So then she had to undo all she'd done so Sam's broken phone would work until next Wednesday when they would get a new Voyager Titanium into the store. Oy. Cell phone stores have officially replaced the DMV for time wasting in my book. I can never get out of there under an hour.

I also had another errand at the mall. Joyce's HP laptop has been 'acting funny' for a few months, so the other evening she took it to Best Buy to have a Geek Squad dude look at it. We bought it at Best Buy and we bought the extended warranty. Long story, short... Joyce's subscription to her antivirus software ran out this past summer and she didn't renew it. She told me she asked me what to do about it, but I never gave her an answer, so she didn't do anything. Um... let's see, what was I doing this past summer?... Oh, yes... Vicodin and Valium! She should have renewed the subscriptions. From Limewire she got the Trojan virus. Best Buy wanted almost $400 to fix her laptop & remove the Trojan. I told her to tell them to go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks and bring her laptop home. I took it to "Computers To Go" at the Midland Mall, where they fixed it & removed the virus for $74. Yes, $74. Best Buy sucks. Computers To Go rocks.

So anyway, I was at Computers To Go, standing at the counter filling out the form the guy needed, and suddenly there was a loud BANG! right behind me. The UPS guy had come in and dropped this huge box on the floor. Seriously scared the crap outta me, and also the guy working there. He said something like, "what the fuck man" and then kinda apologized to me, and I said, "no I'm totally with you" and then I turned around and basically chewed the UPS guy out. Mostly because when it happened, I whipped my head around and then waves of intense pain generating from my neck went through me, followed by waves of nausea. I had to stand there at the counter for about 2 minutes doing nothing but hanging onto the counter until it all stopped. That's a long time to stand and say nothing when there's only 2 of you in the store. I finally told Joe, the guy working there, how I had some problems from a couple of neck surgeries. And could he please capture and torture that UPS dude. Oy.

Then I went to my PT appointment, where I laid down flat on my back on the narrow bed thing, with 2 pillows and a wonderfully hot heating pad under my neck. Usually, I have this round bolster to put under my knees, that that was in another room, so I had a large square block of foam. The foam block was too high up the back of my thighs, so I tried to scootch it down a little to get it to under the bend of my knees, and I think I lifted my head up to look... why I did that, I don't know. But it triggered a severe vertigo attack. Severe. The PT, Amy, tried to help me, but it only became worse. I had called Kev, and he and Joyce drove into town together, and Joyce got Sam's phone to deliver it to him and drove the truck home. Kev took me home in the car. It was awful. He had to use a wheel chair to get me out to the car, I was that bad. Couldn't walk. Couldn't sit in the car... I knelt on the floor with my head in my hands with a cold, wet wash cloth leaning against the car seat. I can hardly bear to think about that ride home even now.

Thank God for Kevin. He got me settled in bed where I basically curled into a fetal position and wanted No Movement. Two antivert pills (basically now car sickness pills you can get over the counter) and two valium and Leave Me Alone Do Not Touch Me later, and the vertigo feeling finally started to settle down a little bit.

And then all hell broke loose. Got a phone call. Sam fell off from a deck at his friend's house, actually he was pushed by a friend, just goofing around (teenaged boys!), but Sam was sitting on the railing, so he fell down about 8 feet. Dislocated and fractured his right elbow. The dad, who was so great with Sam, got Sam to ER and Kev rushed around and left to meet them there. Since Joyce had already left to go to Bay City to Mike's that left me alone in the house. Killed me not to go to the ER.

As it started to get dark, the dogs all went nuts barking, and I saw headlights beam across the pond. I called my sister, Kathy, and asked if that was her in my driveway, and as I was talking with her, I heard footsteps on our front porch. It wasn't Kathy, she was at home. Kev didn't turn on any lights in the house, but he had turned on the porch lights. So our house was all dark. I don't know if it was trick-or-treaters or what, but they left. We live so far out and so far off the road, which is a dirt, dead-end road with pretty much no one else living on it, that we never get trick-or-treaters. But it freaked me out. Lying in bed, can't move without nausea let alone get out of the bed, with the house completely dark. So Kathy came over and babysat me until everyone got home. She also fielded all the phone calls, because talking on the phone made my vertigo worse, too. Once again, Kathy, my hero.

Mike and Joyce had delayed their plans for the evening and went to the ER to wait with Kev. Sammy's elbow was put back into place, and they had an orthopedic surgeon look at the x-rays. The doctor was in surgery and had about 3 more hours to go, so in the ER, they put a temporary cast on Sam and sent him home with pain meds. We have to take him to the surgeon on Monday, and it looks like he will need a pin put into his elbow to hold a loose piece of bone from the end of the humorous in place until it heals.

Sam was amazing throughout it all. Because it happened in front of all of his friends, he tried very hard not to cry and pretty much succeeded. Amazing. He did great at the ER, and he's been great at home. My baby boy is no baby, that's for sure. Yesterday, he even typed up a thank you note to the dad who took him to the ER. All on his own, his very own idea.

It really bummed Sam out to miss the Halloween party, especially the haunted house. Sam loves that stuff. And also, bummed him out to cancel his party that was supposed to happen today... for his birthday, he was having 5 guy friends overnight and they were going to play his new guitar hero that he got for his birthday. (We ordered it online, so it came in this past week, and I caved and let him open it. He and Joycie have been rockin' in the basement together ever since.) And since his birthday is on Tuesday - election day - we planned the family birthday party for Monday evening, but that's on hold, and likely canceled, because we don't know what's going to happen on Monday with the orthopedic surgeon.

So this morning, I was up at about 5 am, and feeling much more normal. I laid back down on the bed and watched the sun rise. Going to be a beautiful day. I suggested Kev watch it with me, but he wanted to watch it from a tree stand, so he's out hunting. Beautiful morning for it.

The kids, Sam, Joyce & Mike, are still sleeping. I am not only up and blogging, but I'm drinking coffee and dressed! Spent all day yesterday in my pajamas, between the bed and the recliner, walking like a drunk crazy person between the 2. My balance is definitely back today. I missed a baby shower yesterday, for Mike's older brother's son or daughter on the way. Bummed me out to miss it, I was looking forward to it. I was also looking forward to pottery Saturday morning with my sister, JoAnne, and had to cancel that, too. Since our school has Monday as a day off for the kids, I took Monday and then also Tuesday, Sammy's birthday, on vacation. So far, the weekend has not gone as planned. *sigh* But the sun's shining and the coffee's hot. Sam's fall could have been so much worse. And Joyce won $100 at the casino (their plans for Friday evening, which they delayed until Sam was home). So we're good. It is what it is.