Life of Wry

I tell you, I am so entirely out of sorts, I don’t know where to begin, or what to write.

So, starting with this: I’m in LA.  See above.  I’m not in downtown, but took a picture of this very nice graphic depiction of LA that hangs in Southwest’s baggage claim area at LAX.  It feels like an appropriate representation of this moment: out of alignment.

Speaking of that. The whole world sucks when you’ve thrown out your back. You’re immobilized, you hurt, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to put your pants on normally again. Everything hurts from hurting non-stop for 4 days. Because you’re always afraid of setting off that big giant spasm, you don’t want to move at all, but if you do, you do it gingerly. Then you hurt from being so sedentary. You can’t bear to sit for one more second. You’re favoring the part of your back that’s on the verge of a spasm, so the rest of you aches from all the compensation.

So, that.

Then, there was last night’s icky drama.  Had a pleasant enough dinner out, but as we were leaving the restaurant, my mom started to feel lightheaded. I won’t go into the details, but: collapse, lying on the floor, bar towels, chaos, 911, sirens, emergency response vehicles, an army of EMTs. The vision I can’t get out of my head, though, was my mom’s face as her eyes rolled back into her head and she completely folded over as I tried to hold her up..and it gets worse, but I don’t even want to write about it.  Not the way you want to see your mom, is all I can say. She recovered quickly, thankfully, and things seemed fine again.  She opted for home over hospital and we were on our way. She seemed to handle it all in stride, but it took me a couple hours to stop shaking.

Quiet day today, which was welcome, but tonight we watched the republican presidential debate.  Bad enough, but nothing more heartbreaking than listening to the best candidates the republican party can come up with one-upping each other on how, when they’re president, they’re going to build a longer, stronger, higher, more electrically-charged wall than the next guy in order to keep illegal aliens out of the United States. Bachmann boasted she’d build a double wall. I think it was Santorum who vowed to defund the United Nations.  They were rude and yelled and talked over one another.  Just good lord.

At this moment, my mom’s wondering aloud why the security lights have come on outside–you know those lights that are motion sensitive? Then she says, oh, it’s probably just an animal, and goes off to bed. And now I’m sitting here alone in the family room scared shitless, wondering how I’m going to fend off axe murderers with my back so messed up.

Really hoping for a better day tomorrow.