When Plans Go Awry

This wasn’t the post I intended to write today. But in the last couple of weeks, not much has gone as I intended.

I’ve written before that I am a planner. Before I went to my daughter’s wedding, I’d planned what work I would do on my novel, on my blog, and on all my other commitments when I returned home.

I also planned my husband’s medical appointments, of which there are many. On the Tuesday after I got home from the wedding, he finally saw a neurosurgeon about his sciatica. He had tried other potential remedies without success, and it seemed surgery was the last resort. The surgeon confirmed it—the sciatica was caused by a structural problem, and it would take surgery to fix it.

“And I have an opening next Wednesday,” he said.

That was fast. After we’d spent all year trying less extreme measures and then trying to schedule this surgical consult, the surgeon was ready to cut in a week?

But my husband decided to take the appointment. And eight days later, he had the surgery—a laminectomy at L4-L5.

Since then, we’ve been dealing with his recuperation. The surgery was supposed to be outpatient, but due to a complication, my husband stayed overnight. So I rescheduled an appointment with the neurologist who treats his Parkinson’s Disease, and I canceled another appointment I had.

The day after surgery, we sat impatiently in the Neurosurgery ward while we waited for the physical therapist to assess his walking, which was a pre-condition for the surgeon to release him. That approval came about 5:00pm, and we finally left the hospital around 6:00pm—about 24 hours after I had anticipated. We stopped for fast food on the way home, rather than wait for me to cook the dinner I had planned.

Since we returned home, my husband’s Parkinson’s Disease has caused some post-surgical symptoms to be worse than most patients encounter. He could walk pain-free (no sciatica!), but was unsteady on his feet. Only time will tell whether his poor balance is a temporary condition.

Another post-surgical complication landed us in the ER on Labor Day. There went the morning when I planned to write this post. Some holiday. But this complication, too, will resolve itself, if more slowly than we would like.

So over the past couple of weeks, most of my plans have been thrown out the window. I am trying to take it day by day, hour by hour—something I am not good at. But I did decide that readers will just have to wait until next week for a more substantive blog post.

When has life thrown you a curve ball?