Sciatica

A little over a year ago, my darling husband made the mistake of throwing a 40 pound bag of dog food over his shoulder like some insane long shore man. The result was a herniated disc and mass household hysteria.

You see, Mike didn't have any immediate pain from the initial thrust of the enormous bag of dog food, and only heard a popping noise emanating from his back. He ignored it and made no mention of it, typical behavior for most men. After dropping the kids and I off at home, he decided to go to Kmart for some gardening supplies. He knows not to bother asking me to go, because that store makes my skin crawl. As I've previously mentioned, the 3 words Jewish women should never hear is "Attention Kmart shoppers". Anyway, while bending over to reach for something he felt an incredibly sharp, paralyzing pain in his back and left leg. He realized he couldn't stand or walk and sat down on a low lying shelf. Living in New York, people walked by him never bothering to ask if he was OK, but rather thinking that he had some kind of strange gardening fetish. Somehow he limped to his car and drove home. He yelled to me from the garage to help him hobble up to bed so he could lay down. Once there, it became evident he had some kind of serious back problem, discernible by his incessant whining and subsequent screaming and crying.

I immediately called our doctor, knowing it was a Sunday and I would have to deal with one of his lesser colleagues who would no doubt be annoyed that I interrupted his golf game. The doctor arrogantly agreed with my diagnosis of Sciatica and called in a prescription for Vicodin. I picked it up after dropping our kids off at a birthday party, and looked forward to some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, the pill did nothing and only made my husband more hysterical. About an hour later and much verbal abuse and expletives, I was on the phone with the doctor again while Mike wailed for me to call an ambulance. It was at this point that my kids got dropped off at home from their party. Hearing daddy cry like a baby was foreign to them and quite upsetting. I juggled them as I held up the phone so the doctor could hear my husband screaming. He finally agreed that I should call an ambulance since nothing had helped, including the 3 Ibuprofen I had earlier shoved down his throat. As I hung up and was about to dial 911, I heard Mike yell at one of our sons, "Tell your f-ing mother to call an ambulance or I am going to G*d damn divorce her". It was at this point that I began dialing furiously while my sons were freaking out that daddy was going to die and I wasn't helping him. The police arrived first and asked if I was his wife since I was dressed in sweats and could have been mistaken for a bag lady. Then came the paramedics who assessed my husband's condition while I waited downstairs with an officer. I noticed Mike was much calmer and nicer to them. I even overheard him say he was feeling a little better, at which point I turned to the cop to see if he had heard the same thing. When he agreed he had, I replied, "that f-cker!", as any wife would in my circumstances. The next thing I knew, they wheeled him out wearing only his boxer shorts. After getting a sitter, I met up with him in the emergency room. As the nurse fed him Percosets, I realized he was wearing the new boxer shorts I bought him for Valentine's Day that had red hearts and provocative naughty looking nurses on them. Noting this, the nurse and I both cracked up at his expense. After several hours, and a pair of paper doctor's pants he was released into my nurturing care.

Needless to say, it took an endless supply of drugs (for me), and an excellent spinal surgeon to remove the chip that had fragmented from Mike's disc and pressed against his nerve until he cried like an infant. The only time I became angry with him was when he told me that regardless of having birthed twins, I knew nothing about pain. Lucky for him, he was already in excruciating agony at the time so no retaliatory response was necessary.