My Back is Whacked

Howdy friends and family,

What a wild ride this past week for the Webbs.  The day after Mary's wedding in Oklahoma my back went out.  By that I mean, a disk squirted out of the side between two vertebra in my lower back and pressed against a nerve.  It started out as a minor annoyance, but within two hours I was stuck in the horizontal position unable to even roll over in bed.

I endured four days of the worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life.  Every movement of my back produced literal screams of pain.  Kendra and I were scheduled to fly out the next morning, but I wasn't even able to sit up, much less stay in the seated position through two flights to get back to Sacramento and then face a 13 hour drive back to Phoenix with the twins.

We both cancelled our flights and booked new ones for Wednesday directly to Phoenix in hopes that I could get some relief by then.  Ouma and Oupa agreed to hang out with the twins for a few extra days and then drive them 13 hours home to Phoenix.

While I was bed-ridden, drugged up, and praying for a miracle, Easton and Layla were having the time of their lives.  swimming with Oupa is one of the many things they look forward to in the summer.

Doing some sports drills to improve hand-eye coordination is always more fun when it involves splashing and staying cool.

Kendra's cousins and their kids all got together for a fun cousin day.  Since we were out of town Ouma and Oupa stepped in to fill our shoes and mingle with the cousins while the kids played together.  This is most of them making silly faces.

I think this is Landon's room.  I asked Easton and Layla who they played with the most and the answer was a unanimous "Landon".  Their ages are scattered, but playtime usually works out well when kin is involved.

The grand parents joined in the fun at some point in the day and made for a super huge BBQ get together.  Of course, a pool was involved because the high day time temps were too toasty to do much else outside.

Meanwhile, back in Oklahoma, I was desperate enough to go the emergency room.  The experience there was pathetic and useless, but I had to try something.  Since my injury happened on Saturday there were no chiropractors or massage therapists available to help me.  The doctor spent about one minute touching my back and asked me to do a few movements.  Then he left!  The nurse gave me a shot of anti-inflammatory and a shot of morphine and sent me on my way.  I had Kendra bring me a little snack and asked the nurse guy if I could lay a few more minutes in bed to eat my snack.  He said something like, "No, sorry we have to clear out this room.  You can thank Obamacare for the time constraints."  And just like that they sent me out!  No MRI, no X-ray, no follow up, no prescription for pain medication.  

Mary's new husband Joel spent almost the entire Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday toting me around from doctor to hospital to massage therapist.  We had some great bonding time together. I wish circumstances would have been better, but one of the few good things I got from this whole experience was several hours of quality time with my new uncle.

The morning came when we were scheduled to fly out and I still couldn't even sit up in bed without intense pain, but we went anyways.  I sat painfully in a wheel chair as Kendra pushed me around from place to place.  The flight was delayed so I spent over two hours sitting in the wheel chair, then almost 3 hours in the plane.  This was the least fun plane ride ever because I had to keep pressure off my spine by holding my upper body up by my elbows on the arm rests... for three hours.

The one thing that made it worth the difficulty was being in my own house.  I arrived home to find Easton and Layla and Ouma and Oupa happy to see me.

The story is turning out well, but that's all my back can handle of sitting in the chair to blog.  I wish I could have posted regularly during the past few days, but I was out of my mind.  Welcome back, Daddy, to reality.

See you soon!