Thursday, July 7, 2011: On a jet plane

"G, Gavin. G, Gavin." Right now he's playing with a big foam block with the letter G on it and that's what he's saying. I held it up yesterday and said, "G is for Gavin." So clearly he's a genius.

Gavin and Stacy are off to Spanish class this morning at Bright Loritos. I'm staying home. My grand plan is to pay our bills and pack for Florida. Because we're leaving to go to the land of swamps and alligators this evening (and for the record, my sister lives here as does a big burly dude with a baseball bat, so don't get any ideas). I get to see Amanda Carver (not to be confused with Amanda my sister), which I am very excited about. Gavin is excited about this trip, too. When you ask him where we're going to day he says, "In airplane" and then "Paul's house." It is technically Granny Marilyn's and Paul's house, but Gavin is looking forward to sorting Paul's tools again like he did at Christmas when we visited last.

Another reason to sit out Spanish class is that I am injured. I sprained my thumb and I hurt my back. These injuries are not related. I was hoping this whole back pain thing would go away like it did last time, but it just got worse and worse over the 4th of July weekend and finally I asked Laura to take me to urgent care (with Amanda Carver's prompting, mind you. It had never occurred to me to go before she mentioned it). But, yeah, I was in pain and nothing was helping. The doctor there gave me some muscle relaxers and a prescription for Motrin (which I didn't fill because I already have Motrin at home, thank you). Then he had the nurse give me a shot of Toradol in my hip which hurt like a motherfucker. A little warning would have been nice. When she put the needle in I thought, "Okay, this isn't my favorite, but I can handle this." When she started injecting the Toradol I thought, "Okay, this burns and is really uncomfortable, but it's all going to be fine." And then when she finished the shot and the full dose of Toradol was in my ass I thought, "Holy shit, I am going to die." Like, seriously, I think being shot with a gun would possibly have hurt less. I immediately felt like I was going to puke and started to sweat like I'd been working out at the gym for hours. My clothes were soaked. The doctor advised me to sit down and he had his hands on my arms propping me up, I think, so I wouldn't fall down. At some point I fainted, but the doctor had already gotten me into the chair at that point. Then I kind of lunged forward in the chair which woke me up and the doctor said, "That's right, the pain'll bring you back." I said i felt like I was going to be sick and so the nurse was holding a big pink puke basin in front of me, and that's when I saw Laura poke her head into the room. She looked pretty freaked. It turns out the nurse had said to her, "You might want to go in there for moral support. She's not doing very well." That, to me, is the kind of thing you say when someone's dying, so Laura was kind of freaked out. Anyway, I didn't pass out. I didn't puke. I made it through the rain, as Barry Manilow would say. But I'm still in pain. I've got my little physical therapy exercises that the doctor printed out for me from the Internet. And I've been warned against trying to lift Gavin, which is what the doctor thinks triggered this whole thing. I'm not so sure about it, but I admit it probably didn't help.

Stacy and Gavin had gone off to Grandpa Gary's house for the weekend with Uncle Dave, Stacy's brother. So Gavin got some good dude time in. I swear he came back walking with a little machismo swagger. He's very into dudes right now (see: "Paul's house" above).

I hope this trip is painless (aside from my back and thumb). This will be Gavin's last time on an airplane without his own seat. He's not quite 2 yet, so we're taking advantage of that. He's a pretty good little dude at restaurants, so I hope that will somehow translate to airplanes, too. I'm hoping he'll fall asleep since it's an evening flight. Wish us luck.