I Hate Being Just a Spectator

For nearly all of my life, I’ve been blessed with good health and a physical condition that allows me to do pretty much everything and anything I want.    Yes, I get hurt now and again (witness the broken foot I had to hike out on this summer) — but at least I’m out there doing what I love when it happens.
So I have to admit that abruptly becoming an invalid has shaken me up pretty badly.   I just never anticipated spending 3 straight weeks flat on my back, unable to stand, walk, or even sit.  But here I am, regardless of my obviously naive expectations.
It seems that I’ve ruptured a disk in my lower back.  The doctors tell me that it’s “extruded” — meaning that material came out of the disk and entered the area around the nerves in my spinal cord.  And my nerve is “impinged”, to boot.
Sigh…   Mostly, what all that means is that I’m in intense pain 24/7.
Tomorrow, I go to see the spine surgeon guru.  I think I’m ready for what he’s going to say, but I’m not 100% sure I won’t burst into tears when he tells me he has to operate on my back.
I’m scared.
But I miss being myself.  It’s killing me to not watch Adorable Child’s swim meets or volleyball tournaments.  I can’t stand it that my husband has to do all my ‘stuff’, in addition to his own… PLUS working full time.  And the glorious weather recently is making my photographer-self absolutely nuts.
So there you have it.  This is, in large part, why I’ve gone dark for quite awhile.  No, it doesn’t account for all the time I’ve been offline, but it’s most of it.
Think a good thought, eh?  Cuz I really really wanna come back into the world.  Whole and healthy and ready to roll.  I don’t want to be a spectator;  I want to LIVE my life.