Many of you may have wondered what happened to me and my weekly blog? Well, you don’t have to wonder any longer. I’m back and in full stride again. It was absolutely necessary for my absences, as life did throw us a curve ball. Only this time, it wasn’t about me.

Back on May 31^st, my wife fell at work and suffered a compression fracture on her L3 vertebrae. Diana is always very stoic, but when I got her call at just past six am, I could tell something bad happened. She didn’t want an aid car because she didn’t think she hurt herself that bad. After being on the phone just a couple minutes, I knew it was serious. It was a very stressful situation as I was stranded at home as we only have one vehicle. The school sent the bus mechanic up the mountain to get me, so I could take her to the emergency room. By the time I got there, which was only about fifteen minutes, she was in excruciating pain.

Fortunately, now that I have my sclera contacts, I can drive again. The closest hospital is thirty minutes away and within just a few minutes of the trip, Diana wished she had them call for that aid car. When you haven’t driven in a while, it can be nerve racking, let alone trying to get to your destination as quickly as possible. But we made it to the emergency room drop off. Diana was in so much pain, she couldn’t get out of the car and I was of no help. I ran inside to get someone to assist and they were pretty useless, which then added to the stress. They said, we’ll have to call the fire department and have them send someone out.

Well, Diana wasn’t going to wait for who knows how long for the fire department to arrive, so she powered through twisting and turning enough to get out to a point where I could pull her to her feet. Oh, and the fire department never showed up.

At this point, it was too painful to sit or lay on her back. The only position she could tolerate was standing. I will say, they got her back to a room within five minutes of walking through the door. Then it seemed an eternity waiting for an exam by the doctor and finally a shot of some pain medication, which actually did nothing. Once she got an x-ray and then a CT scan, they got an IV started and was able to give her some medication that helped. But it didn’t last very long. Simply because of the tremendous pain she was in.

When the results came in and the doctor brought up the CT scan on the screen for us to see, it was very apparent that there was something wrong. The doctor pointed to a spot on her L3 bone that was crushed. He called it a stable compression fracture on L3. Fortunately, that is if there’s anything fortunate about a broken back, is that it was stable and on the exterior of the spine. If it was on the inside, it could have been much more serious causing a spinal cord injury.

The next several weeks were rough for everyone. With my physical limitations, it’s difficult for me to keep a fast pace. Now that Diana was down for the count, I was taking care of everything in the home and driving everyone to appointments. Over the next two weeks, life was super difficult with my existing neurological limitations. But you know what? I did it. We all survived and Diana is healing very well. In fact, last week was her six week follow up and with a new set of x-rays, they were able to confirm the fracture is stable and there are no issues at all. In fact, they said there shouldn’t be any long-term issues with this as long as there are no more falls to reinjure the area. So, I told Diana, “You’re done falling. You can’t do that anymore.”

Life is finally getting back to normal for us. Diana is back to regular activity. They told her that her body will tell her when she’s overdoing it. I’m also recovering from the stress of this curve ball and now, I’m back in the writing saddle again and boy does it ever feel great!

So, the morel to this story is, if life does throw you a curve ball, the best thing you can do is just keep swinging at it. Eventually, you hit a home run. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing that ball flying out of the ball park. That’s when you know you’ve hit a home run and that curve ball was not as difficult as you first thought it would be.

Thank you for reading today’s blog. I hope these words and my experiences help you to take a few more swings at the curve balls that life send your way.

Until next time, this is author Brian K. Larson, sparking imaginations, one book at a time.