Too Much Too Soon?

You know those moments in life that truly test your character? The moments you never see coming but suddenly you are faced with a choice. . .RISE or RUN.

That moment when a friend sends a text in a group chat, calling out an emergency. . . are you the person who will jump into action and help or do you kinda hold back and see if someone else in the group will be the cream and rise to the occasion? 
Or those feats of strength when a mother will lift a car off her injured child.


As many of you know, I was plopped right smack into a test of my character this week when DC was injured on the ski slopes. I don’t know if you are like me but being a caregiver and dealing with medical stuff is so not my thing. We all have our gifts in life, I am fully aware that injury, blood, broken bones is not where my gifts lie. 

Give me a drink and ask me to entertain. . . that I can do. Be the life of the party? Yup. . . bring it on. Public speaking? Easy! Care giving. . . uh. . .no. 

Knowing this, I hope you realize the Herculean feat and depth of character it took for me to survive DC’s injury. Don’t think I don’t realize how selfish this sounds. . .I totally know it and yes, that is a loud BEEP BEEP you are hearing as I sit here tooting my own horn. Quite honestly, him surviving my care giving is probably a way bigger accomplishment but let me have this moment. 

We have been dating for 5 weeks. . . yes. . . 5 WEEKS when the accident on the ski slopes happened. He had to be rushed to the hospital and Lawd help us all, he was released to my care.

via GIPHY


At no point during the crisis, did I want to run. In fact, at no point during the hellish 3 days of getting him back home did I want to run, I was willing to do anything and everything in my power to help him. But it took everything I had in me to offer that support. Hearing him cry out in pain when I had to shift his leg to pack more ice, cut me deep. Seeing the pain in his eyes as he tried to stand so we could move to the next location was brutal. And I know it killed him a little bit inside that I had to pack up the house, pack up the suitcases, move the luggage, load the car and drive us out of ski country and closer to his desperately needed surgery, because that is the kind of guy he is, he wanted to take care of us and he couldn’t.

I think most of us would do the exact same thing if faced with this situation, but it does not come without cost. My body aches from lifting him and moving him. I am beyond tired from waking up multiple times per night to check on him make sure he’s breathing or to get him his next dose of pain meds. I can guaran-fucking-tee it that I have sprouted a dozen new grey hairs and wrinkles in the past few days and I am already dreaming of a Calgon take me away moment!

Even though this is a brand-new relationship and quite frankly we should still be flirting, wooing, dinner dating and maybe a little Netflix and chilling, we have quickly graduated to a level of intimacy that takes years to establish. . .all because of a ski weekend gone wrong and a shattered knee.

via GIPHY



We have truly seen each other at our worst during a time when we should still be attempting to put our best foot forward. Will this be the glue that holds us together and this is a story we will tell for years to come? Or will this end up being too much too soon and we burn out just as quickly as this whole relationship started?

Only time will tell, but one thing I can say for sure. . .this experience has shown me the type of man he is so. . . on my end. . . I can definitely see a future. At this moment, I am totally believing that he feels very differently after witnessing, firsthand my Kathy Bates style of care giving, I swear to God, I was born without the compassion gene.

Y’all, I’ll keep you posted on how this whole shit show unfolds but to make me feel better, I want to hear you toot your horn of when you were the cream and rose to the top!

- Annie

 


5 comments


  • Shelly

    Congrats on surviving and you not breaking anything on the slopes! Congrats on taking care of him. It’s a tough job not everyone is cut out for.
    My story. Last Friday was notified uncle went in to hospice care for cancer. Spent the weekend making sure everyone was okay had what they needed my cousins wife was okay with her two kids because her husband went to be with his dad. Monday had my annual mammogram. Monday night found out they found something gotta go back they will call me to schedule. Tuesday morning uncle died of cancer. Got a jury duty notice and my son who just graduated the academy and is working in a big dangerous city four hours from me is calling telling me all about the exciting stuff he is having happening as an officer (of course he is working in a bad neighborhood). Wednesday go for my follow up mammogram find out more bad news and they have to do a biopsy that they can’t get me in til March 1st. Mom calls. Dad is having a questionable reaction to his Covid vaccine. He is 85 after all. Talk her through that we discuss her upcoming medical procedures. Still have stayed calm and collected. My younger son comes home from work threatening to quit his job because someone was mean to him. Calm him down. Had to get him up on Thursday to go to work and he’s yelling at me for being annoying. Now I’m at work and still have only told a few people about the upcoming biopsy because I don’t want to worry anybody. Deep down I wanna scream and yell and throw things. I cook stuff for my friends when they need it. I send encouragement cards and gifts. I remember to ask about things. I drive to appointments with people. But I won’t tell any of them about mine.


  • Faith Rossi

    These stories remind me that when Moses needed to get his people away from the Egyptian‘s and they were dropped against the Red Sea, God didn’t take the C away. He parted it so Moses could walk through with his people. While we wish things wouldn’t happen, God will give us the strength to get through the storm, the shit show in our lives.
    I think back a few years to when I was working in Marshalltown Iowa on a beautiful summer day in July. We had moved our offices that day. The tornado sirens went off and we took cover. We called the houses I made sure staff had our individuals in basements. A little while later we were given the all clear and after ensuring all are in dividual‘s were OK, I sent my supervisors home to make sure all the kids were good etc., while I stayed to finish putting our office together. We work with mentally disabled adults in residential services in HCBS housing. Less than an hour after that first siren stopped, it went off again but this time it was for real as the F5 tornado ripped through Marshalltown and wreaked havoc on the entire town. The building shook and I thought it might be my time to join my mama in heaven. Well it wasn’t, I went outside when it was over and it looked like a war zone!. Bricks and parts of building reline everywhere. My car had moved and was now sitting on top of the roof that had blown off the building next to our parking lot with all the windows blown out. The work vans were destroyed. I went to call my people to make sure they were OK. Instead of walking a half mile to get home, I had to walk a mile and a half to avoid all the downed power lines. After finding out that while there was no power in my apartment building, but my little baby boo (my adorable 4 pound long-haired Chihuahua) was ok, I needed to get to my houses to check on my individuals and staff. I ended up walking to check on my people and staff that evening. It was a long and frustrating walk having to avoid powerlines, potential gas leaks, all of the downed trees and debris from buildings. But everyone was fine, just shook up. Only one of my houses had power. Then I was able to contact guardians to ensure them their individuals were OK. As nobody could really get in and out of Marshalltown that night, we all stayed put. The next day with the help of my amazing team, we had to make arrangements so our individuals could be in homes or locations with power. Most did not grasp the severity of the situation even though it looked like a war zone. By the afternoon, we had resettled four houses of individuals to different locations and made sure all of our staff and their families were OK. I then found out, that I had to move out of my apartment building as there were structural damage. Crazy times, but we all made it through the crisis. I think that God gave me the wisdom to deal with all The issues that we did because he prepared me as I had just moved back to the states from the Caribbean a year before and had dealt with hurricanes for 11 years.


  • Lisa Minnix

    You are rocken it babe. Coming from a nurse you are doung excellent all these feelings are normal. You could have ran an you didn’t. Thats a true feat there. No tooting my own horn babe. I love being a pediatric nurse. Rewarding daily. Crying daily then Rewarding again. Sister love 💘


  • Heidi-lyn Morse

    Dear Annie, first I want to say you did an awesome job taking care of DC. No I wasn’t there, and you might think you weren’t stellar, but you and he were finding humor in the situation and half of that had to be coming from you. So now for my horn tooting…besides being a mother of twins rock star, dealing with a son addicted to heroine, him being in jail, getting out of jail, overdosing, dying, and being brought back to life, two years ago my husband fell down the steps and I found him on the landing when i got home. I thought he was dead, eyes rolled back and all, for which I now suffer from PTSD. Anyway, after calling his name several times and checking his pulse, I realized he was alive and just seriously drunk. I tell him to get up and go to bed, not knowing he’s fallen I went upstairs to make dinner. I go to check on him and tell him to go to bed and he tells me his neck and back hurt, at which point I ask if he’s fallen, but he doesn’t know? UGH. I go back down the steps and upon further inspection, I see his head is bleeding a little and call 911. I know this seems odd but he was drinking A LOT so finding him on the steps or somewhere passed out was becoming “normal.” They took him to the hospital, intubate him because his alcohol level is so high they’re afraid he’ll stop breathing, and give him a CT scan. Everything’s fine, besides he’s in a lot of pain from falling and they send him home two days later, you guessed it, for me to take care of and dole out the pain meds because he’s a child and can’t do that on his own. You need to realize, I am pissed off at him because the morning before he fell we had a fight while he was filling out a medical form and he couldn’t remember my birthdate or wedding date and I said really? And he said why would I want to remember that, I don’t want to be married to you! This was 8 am. So for the next week, I am emptying pee bottles, sponge bathing, cooking, cleaning, and whatever else the man needs all while he’s complaining about pretty much everything I’m doing and whining about the pain which I have little or no sympathy for because he did it to himself. So girl, you’re a rock star, me not so much then. A week later, my nephew fell 50 feet from a tree and passes away. We traveled on the autotrain, up to PA to the funeral and then came home a week later. He went to the Dr. for a follow up and got an MRI. When he got home the Dr. called for him to come back for a neck brace, he has a broken neck! He has to have surgery tomorrow, which is New Year’s Eve. After surgery, he thought he coming home, but the Dr. said he had to go to a rehab for a week because he had to wear a brace and can’t look down to do steps. He’s there one night and is calling for me to pick him up because I take so much better care of him. The nurse and I tell him he has to be able to do certain things before they will discharge and make a deal with him when he does all those things, he can go home. Really, at this point, I just want a few days and nights to get some sleep and not be worrying if he’s going to drink again. After five days, he’s back home again and I’m getting him to be more self sufficient but I’m still doling out the pills because I don’t want him trading one vice for another. The best thing was he was unable to drive, so he couldn’t go out and buy alcohol. Did I mention though all of this, I had just finished almost five years of college, taking summer classes, done my student teaching for middle school science, was supposed to have my commencement on Dec. 12th, (my nephew’s funeral date) and was already so drained and ready for some time off because I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Guess what, that light was another fucking train! So, after going through all of that and getting him better and functioning again, I couldn’t take it anymore in that house because every time I looked at the landing, I went through all that trauma again, that’s why I moved out. So Annie, you did a great job, maybe you weren’t Florence nightingale but you were there, and you did it, and that means a lot! Even if this relationship doesn’t last, which I think it will, if you want it to, you still know that you had his back. That’s amazing.


  • lea haar

    You got this girl!! I can only imagine what you are going through. Shitshow extraordinairre!! These are the things that make us strong!!


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