The REALITY of it all...

On July 21, the world as we knew it changed dramatically.  My husband of nearly 16 years, father to my children, a very active and athletic guy (and extremely stubborn) was attempting to drive a riding lawn mower up steel ramps into the back of a full-sized truck.  Being a ZTR mower, which is back-heavy, and the incline being rather steep, the mower tipped backward off of the ramp with Brian still in the driver seat and crushed his T12 vertebra, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
NOW...what I know is how to sell Real Estate, not be a nurse! Let me tell you however, that what ever your mind can conceive, it can achieve. 2 weeks in the hospital with chest tube, IV's, catheters, bed baths and much more...then on to rehab in Oklahoma City for another 3 weeks.  I learned it all!! These are the everyday things that go along with such a tragedy, what you aren't taught...and frankly I do not think can be taught, is how to deal with the emotions behind it all.
So many milestones go along with such a journey, most of which I eagerly shared with my Facebook friends.  "LOOK! He's sitting up!!"  "LOOK! He's doing therapy!" "LOOK! He's lifting weights!"... the tears, I didn't post. I didn't post the hard times, and I understand that most of them go without saying, I know that no one assumes that this fork in the road is a piece of cake and I didn't want to portray this event as the worst possible thing in the world, but in OUR world...it was.
We had to suck it up, we had to just deal with it!! We had 4 kids, 2 dogs, 2 careers, and a home to get back to, so let's knock this out and get back to it.

Honestly, the hospital and the rehab center were a cake walk compared to the emotion of being home.  When you are surrounded with doctors and nurses, therapists and visitors you are focused on what you need to be doing at the time.  When you come home, you are faced with all the things that were so familiar to you being so far from familiar now.  The house had changed, it had been adapted for wheelchair accessibility. The kids had changed, we were gone for 5 weeks and they had to live like gypsies.  Our roles in our jobs had changed, when you are in sales being MIA for 5 weeks isn't conducive to profitability and even though Brian primarily had a "desk job" as an Accountant, there were still aspects of his job that took him out and about at times, to accomplish inventories and such, to which we jokingly say "he can't reach anymore".
I went from being a full time Realtor and (as my husband would say) Joplin Socialite to being a stay at home mother and wife.  I spent my days taking care of Brian until he went back to work at the end of September, taking care of the house (which had to be CLEAN now so that the wheelchair could navigate easily), running after the kids and everything that they forgot to take to school with them, chasing dogs and now cats (WEAK MOMENT on my part!!).  I had the house running like a well oiled machine.  Dinner schedule, cleaning schedule, out patient therapy schedule, GO, GO, GO.  And then one day, I realized that I didn't DEAL with the situation. I powered through it like I do everything else.  On July 21, I said..."OK, well this sucks! But...I got this!!"  I had 4 kids to be strong for, I had a husband to be strong for, I had parents and friends and co-workers to be strong for.  I didn't cry that day...not once! And in the coming weeks I may have shed a few tears, but I never had a breakdown.  I wasn't going to have a bad day, and I certainly wasn't going to let my "Facebook family" in on the fact that this SUCKS!!
I have had a spoiled life as a wife, my husband has always been very involved with the kids, he has always cooked and cleaned and done laundry.  He was the one to lock the doors at night and take the dogs out early in the morning...so to return home to do everything was a change for me. I didn't complain, but I did notice. Does the fact that he is in a wheelchair mean that he can no longer do all of those things? NO...but he certainly didn't want to.  He had become very depressed, and that more than anything took a toll on me.  Positive GLITTERY monologues of how our days were going were not to be overshadowed by all of his negativity! After all, the accident was over...TIME TO GET ON WITH IT! Suck it up...move on!  Let me tell you, it doesn't work that way!!
You have to DEAL!! You have to talk it out! There will be blame and hurt and tears!! I heard it all and I said it all!! I was told that the accident was MY fault because I'm the one that wanted the yard mowed that day...not a phrase that you can get out of your head!! While I know that the statement was driven by anger and frustration, and that he didn't REALLY believe that I had caused this to happen, it still hurt like hell!! It caused me to shut the door on productivity in this house and realize that I had just stopped "my life" for this situation. I don't regret it, not one bit! I was exactly where I needed to be when I needed to be there. But here is what you didn't read on Facebook...

On June 27, 1 month BEFORE the accident, we had filed a divorce petition.  We had been separated from March to June...

On July 21, the world as we knew it changed dramatically...and it was a world many of you weren't even aware of.  We went from not getting along, to being in the same room together everyday for 5 weeks.  We went from him being the one that had to "deal" with most things to me being the one that had to "deal" with everything. WE had to rely on ME and my GLITTERY POSITIVE portrayal of life...but I didn't "deal" with the affect it was having on ME!

So here we are, 7 months later...and I'm not going to tell you things are going well.  I'm not going to say that we aren't right back to where we started. But what I will say, is that when everything is going wrong...you set your expectations and your standards HIGH, and you follow where they lead you!