Sometime in mid-February, as I was giving Becca a bath, Mark surprised me by coming home early. Very early. He had injured himself at work, and had just gotten back from the hospital. At the time, they thought he had just pulled a muscle in his shoulder. A few days of heat, pain pills, and rest, and he’d be good to go back, albeit with a much lighter work load.
Except, the pain didn’t go away. It got worse. So, two weeks later, Mark was told that he was out of work until April. Four weeks, with an MRI and a few more doctor’s visits scheduled. His doctor thought that it might be a torn rotator cuff (it wasn’t), and then maybe just swelling (maybe). The new theory is a possible slipped disk in his upper spine.
I’ll admit it. I panicked at first. Like many married couples, Mark and I tend to fuss and fight regularly. Always over stupid little things, but still fights. And these fights always seemed worse on the weekends, when we were stuck together for 2-3 days. So four whole weeks seemed like a horrible idea. I figured there was a decent chance that we’d either be on the verge of calling it quits by the end of the month, or one of us would have to smother the other with a pillow. I love my husband, but that’s 31 days, people.
The first day was kind of nice. I worked, he relaxed and watched Becca. A couple days went by, and things were going pretty well. Then we started playing games almost every night. Uno, Skip-bo, Yahtzee… We’d sit around the dining room table, and laugh and talk for a couple hours a night. We were really enjoying spending time together. We began trying harder again, doing nice things. I even got a foot massage. We took a few day trips to Ithaca and Syracuse as a family, rented movies once or twice a week..
The month passed much quicker than I thought it would. He goes back to work today, working from noon to 8:00, Monday through Friday. And I am really going to miss him.
Unfortunately, with him going back to work, this does mean that our vacation has come to an end, and he won’t have more time off until some point next year, as the company he works for has employees use up their vacation time before they’ll switch to worker’s comp. So, no trip to Alex Bay this summer. But I’m okay with that.
If you had told me, back at the beginning of the month, that these four weeks were going to make our marriage a lot stronger, I probably would have laughed at you. While we were definitely happy together, we had lost some of the connection we once had. I am thrilled to say that the connection is back. And it’s a really good feeling.