Tales of Holiday Cheer, Volume 2

Our epic misfortune took another dramatic plunge last night, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

When we last left off, our heroine (a/k/a "Me") was lying prostrate on a bench and screaming. Well, I just couldn't sit up or stand. I would imagine this is what's called "throwing your back out." The muscles of my lower back were frozen in siezure and the pain was positively excrutiating. I couldn't see Joe or our car because there were several cars and trucks between us. One of the trucks was being worked on by a couple of guys, and I started yelling to them for help. Finally, one came over and I asked him to tell the man in the white station wagon that his wife is hurt and needs help. Wouldn't it figure? There were TWO white station wagons parked next to each other, BOTH with men sitting in them. So the guy starts yelling, "Hey someone's wife is hurt. She needs your help!" Joe quickly figured it was me, and came over. I don't think he grasped the enormity of the situation. Even now looking back I can completely understand his bewilderment. It's hard now to remember the pain. Honestly, I am pretty sure I was slipping into shock, so a lot of this is fuzzy.

Anyway, I asked him to pull the car around closer, and he took Ceili and put her in the car. I told him I couldn't sit up, definitely couldn't stand or walk, but somehow knew I HAD to get in the car. No way in hell does Wikieup have a hospital. Mostly I didn't understand what was happening and thought it might go away if I could just wait it out. Stupid me. He managed to get me sort of on my feet, with my arms around his neck and him supporting all of my weight. He put me in the car and I spent the next hour and a half moaning and shifting around trying not to be in agony. When we got to Kingman, a sizable town, I knew I'd had enough. We stopped at a convenience store and asked directions to the hospital.

Kingman Regional Medical Center was fairly slow when we got there, except for nine kids with RSV (great, and here we are with a toddler...). Because of the severity of my pain, they got me right in. I was shocky and nearly hyperventilating, which made me lose feeling in a few fingers, toes and limbs. In fact, my right hand seized uncontrollably when the blood pressure cuff tightened. The worst part was seeing Ceili see me in such pain. She didn't out-loud cry, but single little tears kept rolling down her cheek. How heartbreaking is that? I kept trying to tell her, "Mommy's okay. I just have an owie and the doctors are going to help me." I actually think that did help.

Anyway, to speed along, they gave me a Demerol shot (in my thigh, which incidentally STILL hurts almost 2 weeks later) and tried to discharge me, but my back was still seized tight. After a lovely bout of screaming and crying, they rolled me back in bed, gave me another Demerol shot and wheeled me in for x-rays. The x-rays allegedly appeared fine, the second shot took the sharpest edge off and the consensus was that we should head the 1.5 hour to Vegas instead of the 4 hours home (it was already after 7 p.m.). I should point out we were supposed to meet Scott and Jen at 3 p.m.

We got there, had to try two different pharmacies before being directed to "the 24 hour pharmacy" conveniently located... on the Strip. We navigated to the other end of the Strip and Joe went in to fill prescriptions for painkillers and muscle relaxers that weren't his. You can imagine the fun he had sorting all of that out with them. I'm sure the pharmacist was convinced he was a junkie or something. Anyway, we headed to Caesar's Palace which was to be our home for the next two nights, and Scott came up to help us all in. Miraculously, I was able to walk... slowly... through the casino to our rooms.

The next morning, I couldn't get out of bed. After a lot of stretching, I was able to stand and I was in the bathroom cleaning myself up a bit when I heard a "thud" and Joe saying, "Damn it, Ceili!" That's when the screaming began. (back to second person here - sorry for the verb switch) In hindsight we imagine you grabbed the clothes iron with two hands, one on the cord and your left on the iron plate. At the time, we couldn't figure out how you were hurt because we thought you'd pulled the iron down by just the cord. After a few minutes, your hand turned bright red and I was pretty sure you were burned. Security was called, first aid was applied and we were ushered off to Urgent Care just off the Strip.

Three hours later we left, your hand in a HUGE bandage, and headed to McDonald's for a happy meal. (Incidentally, I don't like McDonald's at ALL but you do. Whenever you have a traumatic experience, i.e. getting shots, etc., we treat you to McDonald's and it does wonders for your psyche. This time was no different).

It does no justice to Jen, Scott and Jackson to sum up the rest of the trip in a short summary, but I must (this has gotten long enough!). They were awesome, as always. Jackson is SOOOOOOOOO cute, and SO amazingly good, I was blown away. Jen and Scott were very patient with us. You have to remember, I am normally the driver not Joe. He gets lost and loses his patience quite easily. Even when he drives, I normally navigate. Not this time - remember I was stoned on painkillers?! So, we were late to everything, missed each other at meeting spots countless times and just generally were a pain in their asses the whole time. But it was still wonderful to see them, and we had a blast watching the Mirage volcano and our brief childless stint gambling across the street. We returned home on Wednesday worse for the wear, but partly cheered by the joy of seeing our friends, albeit briefly.