Hooray for today!

Twelve days ago I was pulling up to an apartment building in Santa Monica, mentally preparing myself to give a two-hour MacBook tutorial to a retired writer friend when Angela texted me these words:

I just totally took a weird fall down the stairs.

I sent a sad emoji and texted No!!!! and told her to keep me posted. She said she was just taking a moment to breathe and she'd be ok. Famous last words.

Just two hours later, as I made my way back to my car, I got another text.

I am finishing up something here and then I am going to the dr. I am ok. Just need to get an x-ray.

No biggie. Just an x-ray. Sure. Okay. Fine. No biggie, I was just in Santa Monica. A mere 11 miles away.

An hour and fifteen minutes later I pulled up to the front of the middle school and found Angela sitting outside. Oy, Los Angeles.

So off we went. First to get lunch. Because as we learned from our ER trip in January, it might be a long time before your next meal when you enter a health care facility. Then we headed to the first address on the Workman's Comp listing of approved urgent cares. (And even though Angela has an amazing team of doctors and insurance through Cedars-Sinai, we couldn't go to any of those places...sigh.) I got Angela in the building. I circled the five story parking garage twice. I complained to the parking attendant. I got her to move a cone so I could park and run in. And then found Angela coming back out. They wouldn't see her. Not Workman's Comp anymore. Ugh.

So, off we went, to the westside of Los Angeles. Miles and miles from the school and the best hospitals in the world. And we found the second urgent care. And this time? There was a parking space right out back and they saw her within thirty minutes. They did an x-ray, determined she had a sprain, and sent her home with a boot and crutches and instructions to rest, ice, compress, and elevate.

And so she did. For almost a week. Memorial Day weekend was spent in the house, watching baseball games, reading books, playing Pandemic (thank goodness for Amazon Prime and two-day delivery!), making good food and doing not much else.

Being a caregiver is hard work. I know this because I've seen so many of the people in my life do this work. My parents took care of their parents for years. Then they and Angela took care of me all winter. It takes time and energy and focus and determination. You are responsible for someone else. And I was for the last twelve days.

We managed just fine. There were no broken bones. There were no concussions (she hit her head on the fall, as well as jarred her wrist). Hers was not a life threatening injury. But it took work, and patience, on both of our parts. Being a patient is hard work. Letting others do for you is difficult for so many of us. We have to be vulnerable and be honest and be scared out loud. We have to let others get us things and do what we want to do for ourselves. The bed rest thing? Not so fun after two or three days.

But we survived. And thrived. Angela rested. Our acupuncturist said being on leave agreed with her body. I was reminded, again, that I really can work in any circumstance. Having a nice quite block of time is great when I'm behind the computer but I can also multitask and sneak in moments here and there. And this weekend, we managed to get to the Tigers' game in Anaheim we'd been so looking forward to. Instead of driving down and back, we stayed at a little hotel near the stadium. We took a Lyft to the main gates and a cab home. We propped Angela's leg up and drove home early Saturday morning after she'd rested. We tucked the crutches into the spot behind our seats on the first base line and thought nothing of them for hours. And we decided if Miguel Cabrera can play baseball on a broken ankle, we can probably survive all of this.

And today, Angela headed back to work. She has only three days left with her kiddos before school ends for the year. She could have stayed home another week, the doctor gave her the option. But that's not who Angela is. She's the Cabrera of teachers. She has been dying a little inside each time she gets reports of her children missing her or needing her and not being able to help. Yesterday, she read me a very sweet email from one of her boys. He asked if she was healing and hoped she'd be back soon. She was so happy to respond to him that yes, she would. And yes, she'd print his essay out for him.

So the saying goes, wanna make God laugh? Make plans. I had very different plans for the last twelve days. But today? None of that matters. What matters is today. Today we are on the other side. We are both stronger and more rested and ready to move forward. And hooray for that!