Injured and Stressed

A week and a half ago I got hurt at work. Again. Only this time it’s my right hand. You know, my dominant one. The one that allows me to do everything I do.

I missed 5 days of work already this month and have to go to the doctor again Monday to see if I can go back this week. Spoiler alert: I can’t.

After over a week of wearing an immobilizing hand/wrist brace, icing my hand every two hours, taking prescription strength (compounded) ibuprofen, and doing almost nothing with my hand, I felt a lot better. No pain! Yay!

The kids Classical Conversations community dress-up day (in lieu of Halloween) is this Tuesday, and they’re supposed to go as their favorite literary or historical figure. Zac wants to be Leonardo da Vinci, and Jed wants to be Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. (We haven’t burst his bubble yet with the truth about Coronado, for the completely lame reason that it took him FOREVER to pick a costume he wanted and we ran out of time to make a different costume. We’ll fill him in on the unsavory truth of Coronado after  his dress-up day.)

An essential part of any costume for Coronado is a conquistador helmet, which, a mere 5 days away from showtime wasn’t something I could find and have delivered in time. Luckily, I found instructions online for how to make one out of papier mache.

My hand was feeling so awesome, I thought “Hey, the doctors said not to do anything strenuous, and not to lift more than 10 pounds, but this is tiny bits of newspaper and glue! I can handle that!” So I took off the wrist brace (glue, you know) and went to town. 45 minutes later I had a pretty decent helmet started, and my wrist hurt like hell. Actually, it hurt worse. A lot worse. But I’m trying to cut down on the cussing I do. Ahem.

Ever since then, the pain is back. Not as bad as it was the first day, but about as bad as it was on my second day of wearing the wrist brace.

From doing papier mache.

Does anyone with half a brain really think I can handle manhandling a bar cart or operating an emergency exit or performing CPR on a passenger right now? Anyone? No, I didn’t think so.

So I’m going to continue to be out of work. Hopefully this week the doctor will actually send me to a specialist to get me started on something akin to therapy or treatment instead of  just “go home, pop these pills and rest and you’ll be fine”, which hasn’t worked at all.

I say hopefully, when really I want to cry at the thought. Does my life really have time to do MORE? I already have to go in to town three days a week for hours of therapy for the boys. Each of those days is a frantic race to get our homeschooling done, get to therapy on time, race to complete errands before the boys are done, race home to try and get dinner on the table on time so bedtime isn’t shot (making the next day miserable for everyone because the boys are tired)…and I fail at all of that more often than not already. Do I seriously want to add MORE therapy – for myself  – to the mix?

No. Let me rephrase that. NO. NONONONONONONONO.

But I need it. I don’t think my hand is going to get better without it. And we can’t survive if I’m not functioning. This week has been miserable.

I can’t cook. I can’t clean. I can’t help the boys with small tasks. I can’t DO anything! And although the boys promised to help me, they didn’t. Not really. Not without reminding. And nagging. And begging. And pleading. And eventually crying. And worse.

And Darrel is coming home from a really rotten work situation every day, having to cook dinner, clean the kitchen, and watch the boys go to bed late every single night. He’s exhausted and stressed.

And with all the extra time it takes me to accomplish everything right now, and how much pain I’m in (remember, it’s not just the hand/wrist; it’s also the rash reaction I’ve had going on from MCAD for FOUR MONTHS) this week, when the boys argued with me about doing schoolwork (because what self-respecting contrary child doesn’t argue daily about doing schoolwork??) I just didn’t have the energy to hold my ground and we are behind. Way behind.

As in, Sunday I made them sit and do THREE DAYS worth of school in one sitting, and we still have TWO days worth of school to do today. You know, in between doctors appointments that are an hour drive apart.

I’m typing this mostly with my left hand. I say mostly because out of habit I reach up and type normally at times and immediately go “OW” and stop again…until the next time I forget and do it again.

So, who knows how long I’ll be gone, both from work and from here. I just can’t do it.

This sucks.