Getting Back Up On That Horse

     How many of you have trouble starting all over again after falling down on some responsibility? I sure do. Case in point . . . this blog.
     Now, I really enjoy writing it. Honestly I do. But for some reason, when I have something that gets in my way and causes me to lose the necessary momentum I just seem to fall to pieces.
     Every time there is a crisis in my household I seem to stop writing and then I can't get underway again for love nor money. (Well, since money never has made much appearance when it comes to my writing anyway, perhaps I should just leave it at love.)
     I'm not sure if I've mentioned that my Dear Heart has been suffering from the Shingles for the past two and a half months. In March, when he first became sick, he was mis-diagnosed and treated by a substitute doctor for the wrong thing and then ended up in the hospital where he was mis-diagnosed again for something entirely different. Therefore it was a couple of weeks before his regular doctor discovered what his condition really was and it was a little late.
     I have never seen anyone suffer anymore than the poor man has done. Now, you and I have heard all sorts of horror stories concerning the Shingles and I believe every one of them at this point but until one actually observes or experiences it there is simply no real way to describe it fully. My husband has always been able to throw pain out the window and never gives in to anything. One summer he broke a tendon (!) in his right calf. There was nothing that could be given to him to help the pain so he simply strapped his boot tight and worked all summer until it healed. Once he drove a chisel through his forehead, just missing his right eye, but returned to work as soon as we returned home from the surgery in Kansas City.
     Should I sprain my ankle, heaven forbid, I will be in bed for a week and someone has to carry me to the bathroom.
     But the Shingles has brought him to his knees. He has spent most of the past two and a half months in bed, living on Percocet, if you can believe it. This is a man who is suspicious of multi-vitamins and refuses to take cough medicine. And even that doesn't do more than take the edge off. He does not break out . . . he merely has terrific pain through his body, as if, he says, someone is using large butcher knives on him and later crawling up and down on his back and shoulders. And as if that isn't enough, I'm watching like a hawk in case he gets too despondent. Being in this much pain just invites depression.
     His doctor tells us he is using my husband as a poster boy to promote the shot that will help prevent getting the Shingles. Fortunately I had received it about six months before and we had intended for him to do the same and simply hadn't gotten around to it.
     He has lived to regret it . . . hourly.
     My message to my readers is to head to your doctor's office pronto and get that shot. You won't regret it.