The Shower

It was the end of my husbands work week and we was preparing to go on his out of town fishing trip. He offered many times to stay home with me, but I wanted him to go enjoy his trip. I still wasn’t moving well, I was still extremely stiff. The plan was for him to leave early on Friday morning and return on Sunday evening. Our plan for me was for him to help me shower on Friday before he left then someone in my family would come help me on Saturday. The thoughts of anyone, even my husband, having to help me shower was mortifying! I couldn’t explain it, but I just couldn’t move! The plan went as expected on Friday, Nathan helped me get showered and then left for his trip. My niece, Skylar, helped me throughout the day on Friday.

My sister-in-law, Carla, has always been more like a sister to me than “my brother’s wife.” She has been in my life over half of my life. She’s been there though it all and has always been there to help me in any way she can. I’m sure this is where Skylar gets her big heart from, her mom. So, with all that being said I am not too shy when it comes to Carla. She has also worked as a nurses aide in the past so she’s also not too shy when it comes to caring for others either. Those of us in the healthcare field feel if you’ve seen one butt, you’ve seen them all. My biggest concern wasn’t her seeing me naked or anything like that. It was me, I was ashamed to ask for help. I knew I needed it, I was scared to death that I was going to fall and get hurt. I knew I wasn’t steady enough on my feet. But that dang thing they call pride was getting in the way!

So, all of my family is over for the evening and my parents had brought dinner. We ate, the adults sit around outside and talked, and the kids swam and played, everyone enjoyed themselves. My mom pointed out that it was getting late and asked if I was going to get a shower? I said, “yea but I didn’t think I could do it alone.” She replied that they all knew that and that’s why they were there, to help me. Carla said she would help me and she did. She didn’t make me feel uncomfortable at all, she actually tried to encourage me. When I got done showering, I couldn’t brush my hair. At this point, my hair was very long. I have fine, blonde hair so it tangles very easy. So, Carla brushed my hair out for me also. Again, not that anyone made me feel this way, but I just felt so discouraged! I couldn’t do anything by myself, I was in terrible pain, and I just didn’t know when it was going to get better. Little did I know that this was just the beginning, this wasn’t getting any better at all! This was only the beginning!