A Day in the Life...

It was a beautiful Saturday. The start of a great three-day weekend. What more could you ask for?

The only thing planned was a wedding for our friend's daughter. I can't believe that I have friends whose kids are getting married already, but I digress.

The wedding was going to be held at our church, and the boys were serving.

I was playing on Facebook, the game word twist, with my brother in-law and son. I was getting my butt beat, but that's okay. Jenni was out shopping for... something.

All is well. I still have three hours before I even have to think about getting ready, and the phone rings...

** dramatic music pause **

I stand up, and it happens.

Pain. Lots and lots of pain. My back has decided to go on holiday. It happened, quite literally, as I answered the phone. Jenni didn't notice, until the end of our conversation.

Apparently I grunt and groan while talking on the phone. Who knew.

Lovely Wife: "What's wrong with you?"
Achy-Breaky Back: "I just threw my back out."
LW: "Riiight."
ABB: "No, I'm serious. It hurts!"
LW: "And the fact that there is a wedding in four hours has nothing to do with it."
ABB: "No. It really hurts."
LW: "When did it happen?"
ABB: "Just now."
Pause
ABB: "I'm still going to the wedding, I just hope they have an open bar, that should loosen the back right."
LW: "Whatever."


I get off the phone and stumble to the couch, and proceed to play some more Word Twist. There wasn't anything else I could do anyway, except stay off of it. So that's what I did.

I get into the shower to get ready for the wedding and the heat is actually helping. So I figure that this will be better by evening. Then the colder air hit my back and it started to tighten up once again. I'm still going to the wedding though. Just no dancing later.

We get to the church around 1:30, everyone is feeling fine, with the exception of me looking like I'm forty years older. The boys go set up and Jenni and I take our seats.

It is a wedding Mass, way better than just a service in my opinion, and we go through a reading from the book of Tobit - I love that reading, then we move on to Saint Paul's letter to the Corinthians. You know the one "... love is patience, love is kind..."

Monsignor reads the Gospel, and gives a homily (one that Benjy says he's heard a few times) talking about the three rings of a marriage; engagement ring, wedding ring and suffering, which gets a chuckle from all us married folks. He turns it into a serious talk about how we are to suffer to make our marriages last, or better yet, we have to deal with suffering together as married couples.

They perform the sacrament of marriage, bless the rings, place the rings...

Benjy collapses.

Holy Smoke! The kid just dropped hard on the marble floor. My father in-law is up there in a jiff, and I'm struggling to get out of the pew. We all meet out in the Narthex, someone is calling 9-1-1, and Benjy is looking really pale. We get him some lemonade to drink, figuring he's got low blood sugar - then get told to not give him something to drink. Oops.

What is especially scary about this episode; is that it has happened before. Only that time Benjy had an actual seizure, this time we're pretty sure that he just passed out. They take him to the hospital - I go home to rest my back and watch the other kids, and they do a series of tests. They test for strep, check his temperature (he was at 101), check his tonsils (they were HUGE), and give him an IV. They also give him a CT scan, because he hit his head pretty hard, and determined that he has whiplash. They also gave him a prescription for something to kill whatever bug was starting to come into play.

They get home around six, and Jenni decides to go to the reception, while I stay at home and monitor Benjy.

Benjy is doing okay today; a little sore, which is understandable considering what he went through. He kept his sense of humor though, as he posted on his Facebook shortly after returning home:

"Benjamin is back from the hospital... i suggest you dont fall on marble... it hurts."

No kidding.