Good Days and Bad

At some point in high school a friend of mine threw a small surprise party for a friend of ours. It was in her basement and like most high school girls having a party in a basement we were being pretty obnoxious. Someone thought it would be a good idea to pretend to slip and fall down the stairs. We, of course, found this to be hilarious. I am pretty sure at one point, while pretending to slip down a few steps and attempting to make it look real, I peed my pants a little. Little did I know…

Little did I know that 10 plus (wow) years later I would have a similar incident, only it wasn’t for a laugh, it was for serious.

When you are recovering from a major surgery, you have good days and bad days. There are days when you know you are going to be okay and everything is going to get better and there are days when you are sure you will never return from the depths of hell. They were few and far between, but I had these days.

The last two weeks on disability before returning to work were a bit tumultuous. I was getting over an addiction to pain killers and side effects from my other medications were rearing their ugly heads.

One of the medications I was on in particular was giving me a really hard time. I was anxious and nervous all the same time. I was a bit depressed and I felt like a crying at the drop of a hat (which made watching Ellen give away money to needy people on her show really really heart wrenching for me) – and I am not a person who cries at the drop of a hat. And there were a few other side effects that I will not get into details about, but let’s just say I spent a lot of time in the bathroom.

With limited eye sight – especially at night, getting from my bed – upstairs - to the bathroom – downstairs can be tricky. I relied heavily on my keen sense of direction and counting skills to get myself there. 3 stairs, turn, 10 stairs and straight ahead to the toilet. Simple, right? Well, most of the time it was. But there was one night in particular when it wasn’t so simple and I miscounted. I missed the last three steps and bam I was down. I woke Amanda from a dead sleep as I was sprawled out at the bottom of stairs. “I miscounted,” I told her as she helped me up. She asked if I was okay. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I said.

Looking back on it now, it probably would have been pretty funny. But at the time it wasn’t. I was concerned that I had dislodged my shunt – which was, and is, a possibility. And I really really needed to go to the bathroom.

This is what I would consider to be a bad day – or night. But those didn’t happen too often, thank God. It wasn’t so much that I slipped down a few stairs in the dead of night, it was that I had to get up in the dead of night in the first place. If I am getting up in the dead of night it better be for a good reason – like to catch a plane or start a road trip. And if I have to slide down my last three steps it better to get a laugh and not because I miscounted.