Running With Scissors Since 2008

We met almost 4 years ago and I was instantly annoyed.

He was a slacker and I was in junior management. He wore khaki shorts to work with a t-shirt that said ‘Hate Me’ across the front and wouldn’t stop spinning around in his chair; I would not be seen without full makeup, heals and business-casual appropriate attire. I wanted a promotion and he wanted to hang out in the cafeteria eating sausage wraps. I said things like “I would like to hear more empathy on your calls with customers, and you’ll need to personalize each call by saying your customers’ name at least 3 times before you deliver a professional closing” to which he would whip off his headset and reply “did you just say that you think I’m totally hot?”.

Eventually, he was handed a management position and was sharing a desk with me. One day, I was explaining to him the importance of always saving his emails in a special folder and making triplicate copies of every written form that his direct reports had signed, and he was busily hitting DELETE DELETE DELETE on his inbox and saying “Yeah! Uh-huh! Yes!! Oh! Mm-hmm!”. I had gotten quite used to this. I reminded him that it was almost time for the management meeting in which we would share the cookies we were all required to make the night before at which time he immediately grabbed his plate of cookies and ran. I had gotten pretty used to this too but was in no mood to be defeated again. I grabbed my plate of cookies, tucked them under my arm and headed for the other door at a sprint.

Now, the building we worked in housed about 1500 employees – all of which were now slowly standing up one by one, trying to find out who was blowing by their cubicles, screaming maniacal phrases including “NOT THIS TIME!! YOU WILL NOT WIN THIS TIME DAMMIT!!” and “DID YOU JUST LOOK AT MY PACKAGE??”.

Although he’ll probably tell you differently (he’ll be lying), I won. But most importantly, it was one of the many moments that made it glaringly apparent to me that I couldn’t spend one minute of my life without this man.

We got married two years after we met, and tomorrow will be our two year anniversary. Sometimes its hard to believe it’s already been two years, and then sometimes its hard to think that he hasn’t been by my side for my whole life, cheering me on and pulling me through, like he does now.

Who knew that the same guy that insisted on teaching  me, loudly, how to properly dance the Sharks vs. Jets fight scene from West Side Story in front of our entire department, would be the same guy that taught me the meaning of beauty and grace. Who knew this was the man that would give me every single thing I ever wanted or needed – and then more? Who knew he’d be my every single thing? Who knew that?

She

She was addicted, afflicted, affected and infected in all of the most horrible ways. 

She took pills and shots and liquids and concoctions that she kept in boxes that she got from drug stores where pharmacists called her by name and smiled when she slurred. 

She ached and she quivered and she shook at the thought of running low. 

She protected her collection like a thief – constantly cautious of those who would step in and try to ‘save’ her from herself.

panic

Fifteen misconceptions
in fourteen seconds of day

eighty-five new malformations
in one new lump of clay

ten stiff worried fingers
type ten-thousand nonsense words

while brand new nervous earthquakes
find homes in just-born verbs.

The Missing Pieces

I thought I would update you all and clear up some missing pieces..

It was Don that called me that morning – JDs boss. All of JDs co-workers started calling in late and when one finally said to Don that she was late because she was stuck behind a wreck – it all clicked. JD was late and not answering his phone and that was just not like him.. if someone was in a wreck on the road to his work, it was probably him. Don sent one of them to find out what the car looked like that was involved in the accident and get back to him, but she called him back and said the officer on-site wouldn’t let her near it. He told her only that this was ‘not yet classified as a fatality accident’ and that the driver of the car involved was being taken to Brackenridge. Don left work to see for himself and that’s when he called me.

The hospital social worker that called met me at the front desk and again told me to stay calm and to breathe. She just kept saying that JDs injuries were ‘very serious but not life-threatening’ (a phrase that became increasingly confusing each time I heard it) but that we couldn’t see him until they were done stitching up his head.. she put us in a room to wait and said that she would come in soon and explain his ‘very serious’ injuries.

Eventually, she came back and blurted out a whole bunch of information that sounded like a big math problem: a clean break in C2 along with several small fractures in the same bone; fractures in T5 and T8; with most of the ribs on his right side broken and a head wound that required 21 stitches. I felt major panic that none of this would ever make sense and that I was going to miss something important because my brain was going a million miles a second and I didn’t know what any of that meant. The diagnosis in layman’s terms is that he broke his neck, back and ribs and cut his head open. There were several times that I thought I wished she had said it that way, but its probably a good thing she didn’t – I still can’t say that all out loud without getting a lump in my throat.

  

JD was in the hospital for 10 days – they initially put him in a TLSO brace and said he would stay in it anytime he was sitting up or standing; anytime he was laying down, I could take it off of him and he could wear a neck brace.

At JDs 2 week appointment, the doctor had ordered another set of xrays, and immediately sent him to get a CT scan. He called the next morning and said that he was referring him to a spine specialist because the break had shifted in such a way that he wanted more assistance from an expert.. within a few hours he had an appointment to meet with a neurosurgeon the next morning to be fitted for a halo brace in order to take away all mobility from his neck.

JD has been in the halo now for 2 weeks and has been told to expect to keep in on for 2-3 months. It is big, bulky, awkward and painful at times, but will keep his spinal column safe and the bone immobile for long enough to hopefully fuse it back together. It’s a wait-and-see game for now, but we do have a great neurosurgeon and a bigger-than-we-knew support system, and things certainly could be worse.

He’s my hero. He’s the strongest and bravest person I know. He has been the brightest spot in my life since the day I met him and this has only made him brighter.

Thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes and love. I had no idea so many people could come out of nowhere with exactly the right words that we needed, exactly when we needed them.