An Update

I'm not going to lie, this past week has been rough. Hard on me, hard on Jesse, but mostly hard on Paul. He returned to work last Wednesday. He went in, as requested, on time and had a meeting with the owner of the company and the head of HR. They discussed what he would be doing, what time he was expected to be there, plans for the future, etc. Mostly procedural stuff. He was told he could have some time to get reacclimated into the work force, but Paul's not that kind of guy. He's a jump in with 2 feet kind of guy, so he did. Probably a bad idea, but he did not think of the consequences at the time. He's been wanting to get back for a very long time now, probably since the day his doctor told him he couldn't work. He is not the kind of person that likes to just sit around. He was very sore after day 1, then again after day 2, then surprise, after day 3 as well. Sure, a person is going to be sore after not working for over 2 years, so he just chalked it up to that. After spending 85% of the weekend on the couch or in bed, he started to realize that this is not good.

He returned to work Monday morning and talked to the head of HR and told her that he probably shouldn't have started at 8 hours a day and wants to cut it back to 6 hours a day, she had no problem with that. By noon I am getting texts from him starting with, "I don't think they know that my spine is fused together". Last night we discussed this and no, they didn't know his spine was fused together. In fact, when he told his supervisor this information, I believe he was asked, "Why are you here?". He went to bed at 9:45pm last night, that never happens. Ever.

Today he went back to do another 6 hours. At 3:20 I get a text from him that says, "I need to figure out how to make money working from home. Quickly. This would be a great job if I didn't have a broken spine." followed by "I guess I should have become a musician when I had the chance." It's very saddening to me. It breaks my heart to see him like this. It's been breaking my heart for the past 2 1/2 years since he was injured.

Jesse and I just have mostly routine changes. We can adapt. He's used to seeing his Daddy in the morning and when he gets home. I am used to having someone do some chores when I am at work and have dinner started. I just have to carry more weight around the house. We'll manage. We need this income, but we don't need his pain getting worse. We can live of WC pay (barely), but even if he goes back to that, it's not going to last forever. Seems like decisions need to be made, and they won't be easy ones.