Within seconds.....

Life is amazing when it's heading in the right direction. Well....eliminating our "normal" challenges our life was moving smoothly. Then it only takes a few seconds in a day.... and that life running smoothly is on an unexpected rocky path. I've always believed that somehow we are the chosen ones to face all odds, and just maybe there's some truth. Last Tuesday (June 2nd) approx. 1 pm my husband came in with severe pain. He's always had chronic back pain due to past injuries. So at the time, we thought his previous injuries have surfaced. They still might have.... however his pain escalated to the point where he couldn't function. It's been a week and my husband is basically incapacitated. We have been to the hospital four times. Two different hospitals. Each time hes given different pain medications. We have been told that he has severe nerve damage in his spine. There is a lump on the left hand side between his shoulder blades, below his neck that has been unattended too. This guy that I know very well has a high pain tolerance. He hates hospitals. Today (June 8th) he is almost unrecognizable. His face has sunken in due to the lack of food. He's hallucinating also due to the lack of food while taking pain medication. His whole body is affected. He hobbles due to a swollen ankle. He's lost use of his upper limbs, he has intolerable severe pain.  He can't sleep. He barely eats because he can't swallow. I tried to care for him for four days while looking after my other twelve children at home. I started to notice that our children were becoming traumatized. Our children were crying. My adult children were crying. Our little Emily doesn't understand and now constantly yells, "Broken Daddy" I made the decision to have him stay with his mother during recovery. It was one of the hardest things I have done. My husband was so "not there" anymore. The only time we heard anything from him, it was yelling from pain. He would be in and out of consciousness. Sometimes just passed out drueling.  I felt helpless again. It was an easy transition for him moving to his mothers house because he didn't really know what was happening...... after coming back from the hospital (after begging them to admit him) I left him in his mothers car and explained this is for the best. I walked away. My two older sons followed them out. They went to help him inside his mothers house. When they returned, my almost twenty two year old son was crying. My sixteen year old son reconfirmed and said, "It was for the best Mom, we can't do this, it's too horrifying. I'm so upset seeing him like this. The younger kids shouldn't witness this" Just then, I knew I made the right choice. He couldn't recover here peacefully. And it would be too traumatizing for our children. This was on (June 7th) I didn't think I could parent twelve children under these circumstances. Emotionally I'm wiped. I honestly don't even want to talk about it anymore let alone write. However writing is my therapy outlet. This past week has been a roller coaster. Also a coaster of changes. My two littlest keep asking where their Daddy is. Our Emily sometimes has emotional outbursts screaming, "Come back here Daddy" "Daddy where are you?" "Daddy? Daddy?" Even today she watched out the window and with every car she would yell, "Daddy's home now" Emily loves her daddy and has a very deep connection with him. It's very sad to witness. I hide my tears all the time. I keep saying, "Daddy is working, it's ok" For my own sanity, I have been keeping our house maintained. Laundry, cleaning, homeschooling, cooking....eating. The busier I am the better. Right now I look outside and it's beautiful. The weather is hot. When this happened my husband was building the hot tub area for our daughters therapy. I look at it now resting where he left it. Everything has changed within seconds. We ordered a pool. It will probably come this week. Everything that we planned, everything that was our normal seems lost. Being the only adult here I feel lonely. I have to remain strong for my children but when I smashed my elbow tonight, I just wanted to fall down and bawl my eyes out BUT there was Emily. I stood beside her while she was sitting on her hospital bed and brushed her hair telling her how beautiful she was and that I loved her. Today I'm wishing a quick recovery. We don't know. We were told it will be weeks, even months or longer. It's just one of those crap shoots that can physically disable you for life. At first, after four hospital visits, and a doctors apt we were hoping for that magical cure, and if not a cure, help. We didn't receive anything but pain killers. So ok....I've come to terms with this. There is nothing anyone can do. It's time, it's physio, it's hope. All I know is that all our children need their father back, and my hands are tied. I'm hopeless. This is the worst physical crippling I have ever seen in all my years of first aid. So I don't know what our summer holds, or our future right now....I am trying to stay optimistic believing that this happened for a reason.  I can't help but think it's happened to show us, show me what an asset he really is, and now that he's momentarily gone - we all can feel it. However this man doesn't deserve this. To conclude, I have been working on setting up nursing care and I want to remind everyone that you need to live your life, you need to cherish every moment because within seconds it can be over.