Tales (Tails) of the Cement

sitting gingerly

Anyone who reads Facebook has already seen the status report, but I figured a bit more information might be in order. Or not...but I'm writing it anyway!

We've been trying to clean the clutter out of our basement. It's 30+ years of accumulated "stuff". Things we haven't even looked at for years, things I brought from my mother's apartment when she passed away, things the kids have left here, even though they've moved away. And, of course, there's the stuff we've simply brought in, put down and thought we'd do some organizing with it later.

In short, perfectionist packratting. Yes, I said perfectionist. You see, I've learned that a perfectionist is a person who not only wants to get things right, but is also a person who, when they think they don't have time to do things right, will simply set things down, waiting for that mythical day when they think they can pull things together in harmony with some idiotic dream their brain has cooked up.

And chaos ensues.

I've had enough. I've realized that I long for the days when we were early marrieds, able to move easily in 72 hours, even across the country because we didn't have accumulated clutter. So, the clearing began.

We rented a "roll off", one of those bins that are used on construction sites to put junk in. It's been in our driveway since December. I thought it would be a ten day project, but I found that there are some things about my spouse I knew nothing about.

One...he can't work independently on something like that.
Two...He gets mad if I work on things independently without him
Three...We can talk about clearing a room three days in advance, but if there happens to be some sport event on TV that he didn't know about, that takes precedence over putting our house in shape. IRRITATING!

So, since I'm paying for the thing, my patience wore out. I started pitching things right and left and letting him fuss.

To my way of thinking we finished up on Sunday. I commented that I'd call for pick up on Monday.

Of course, then we ended up in the ER with his arm/shoulder problem which he thought might be his heart, so that delayed things.

Yesterday I got ready to call. He had a temper tantrum over ONE thing in a closet. He told me I could not call until that one thing got thrown away. Well, that's easy enough, even though it was pretty silly. The item he was having such a fit about was a "training video" case, which held VHS tapes from a company I worked with years ago. It was something that easily could go in the regular weekly trash. But did that fit logically for him? Nope.

So, anyway, I rolled my eyes, pulled the thing out of the closet along with a couple of bags of old craft supplies and stepped outside the door to pitch them in the dumpster.

In a split second, my feet slipped out from under me, literally flew out and higher than my head and I landed flat on my back on the cement step, cracking my tailbone on the edge of the step. As soon as I started falling, I started screaming for help.

I hit the ground, still screaming. He's inside yelling at me, wondering what I'm screaming about. Eventually, when I didn't answer, he got out of his chair, came to dhe door and found me flat on my back in two inches of snow.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm hurt!" I gasped in pain.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Help me?!!!!!"

"Okay, just a minute...I've got to go put on some shoes."

And he left me in the snow.

Several minutes later, I still have no feeling in my back, I have extreme pain in my lumbar region, and I realize that I'm either paralyzed, which pisses me off because it would really fuck up my weekend plans, or I'm gonna have to try to move on my own or call 911, which wasn't going to happen because I didn't have my cell phone in my pocket.

So, by the time he got back I'd somehow managed to roll to the least painful side and curl into a fetal position. He got out there and tried to figure out what to do.

I had to keep telling him he could not use his own damaged arm. Somehow I got myself into the house. Not quite sure how that happened yet, but I did. By that time I was crying pretty hard because each step (baby steps) was agony. Eventually, I was able to get him to help me get out of my clothes and assess the damage. A bruise on my coccyx, a bruise on my upper thigh and a contusion on my lower leg.

The next few hours were mainly trying to find any sort of comfortable position to be in. There wasn't any. Couldn't sit, couldn't stand for long, getting to a laying position was next to impossible and when I did, getting up was worse.

Then there was that whole peeing thing. "nuff said.

One of my friends called me every hour, begging me to go to a "real" doctor instead of waiting to go to the chiropractor today. Finally said he was not going to go to bed till I went to the ER, and if R didn't want to take me he was gonna drive a half hour to do so.

My girlfriend threatened me with the dirty needle she'd vaccinated her horse with earlier in the day.

So, between those two and a couple of other people, I capitulated and went to the ER.

Dx: no broken bones, just bruised up and sore. An Rx: for Vicodin, which I won't fill. A work excuse. And finally, falling into bed and finding somewhat of a comfortable position to sleep in.

Spring can't come soon enough.