A Romantic Getaway Weekend....

That's what we were supposed to have this weekend in honor of our anniversary. We had reservations in Hot Springs; "had" being the operative word.

Yesterday afternoon Beau got home from the gun range, took five steps in the door and almost fell to his knees. Out of nowhere we had horrible back pain. It went on all night and was so bad that he couldn't walk. My husband is a tough cookie who never complains from pain so I knew he had to be hurting for him to act that way. As we were about to leave for the E.R. he thought it had gotten a little better and decided to go to bed and rest versus sitting in a waiting room for hours. This morning it was no better, maybe a little worse, so we headed to the hospital.

To our surprise there was no one in the waiting room when we arrived. So remember that 8 a.m. is a good time to visit the Saline Memorial E.R. My friend Sara E. could appreciate this after spending close to six hours in the waiting room there one night:

http://next-on-my-list.blogspot.com/2010/10/done-visit-hospital-twice.html

We were quickly taken back to a room where Beau was issued a typical hospital gown. See:

I didn't capture his face for the picture- it would have been just too cruel on my part. The doctor saw Beau a few minutes after we got in the room and quickly determined, just from Beau's description of where the pain was and how bad, that he had strained a particular region in his lower back. Apparently these types of strains are excruciating when they occur. After a urine sample confirmed that Beau did not have kidney stones the doctor officially diagnosed the strain, gave Beau a pain shot (not gonna lie, I almost passed out during that part), wrote prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory, pain medicine and a muscle relaxer and sent us home.

Beau is doing much better tonight after being rendered unconscious from the medicine although he is still in a good deal of pain. I'm so relieved that everything is ok, even if we did have to cancel our weekend plans. We were able to get a full refund from the hotel after I shared the sob story. We will try to reschedule in a couple of weeks.

Nurse Mamie has not left Beau's side all day. However, being a caretaker can be exhausting.

At least I hope that is why she is passed out... Unless she got a hold of a muscle relaxer???