Today I took Jeff to the doctor. He's had an ingrown toenail that needed to be taken care of. He'd had one removed on the other foot about 5 years ago so he knew a bit what to expect, but I didn't. He wanted someone there "to hold his hand" and I wanted to be there. Even after he'd told me about the experience before, I was a bit surprised that it was as big a deal as it was; his mom had told him he'd be okay to take himself so I guess I thought maybe it was silly of me to go with him.
They gave him laughing gas just so the shots that numb his toe wouldn't hurt so much. He has a hard time with needles and I could tell by his reaction these shots hurt A LOT. It was really hard to sit there thinking he feels pain and fear and I can do nothing. It was almost worse than anything I've had to have done to me because I couldn't take any of it on myself.
After the shots, his toe got very purple and very big very fast. The rest of it was gross, I didn't watch, but it didn't hurt him. After cutting out the toe nail, they had to put acid on it so that the nail won't grow back and there was a lot of blood even though they'd wrapped some kind of thing around his toe to keep it from bleeding much. EW!
Well, my point in writing this wasn't to share the gross stuff. Sorry. My point was how much love I felt for him seeing him in pain and not able to do anything but sit there and hold his arm. After the doctor, I took him to his dad's house so he can play video games with his brother who's out of school for the holiday and then I came to work. As I drove from there to work, I just had a really good feeling. A feeling of love I suppose. I was glad I'd taken the time off to be there with him. I would hate to think he went through that by himself.
And as silly as it sounds, the thought I had was that sometimes I feel good about myself because I've done something that is truly who I am. Teaching was like that. Holding babies is like that. And, just being there offering my support or strength to someone I care about so much was like that. It felt good to give something of myself. And I knew that I was where I should be and it's what I want to be doing with my life. Just loving those that matter, especially my husband and the baby that is on the way.
2 comments:
You are brave for going with him! When you talk about wanting to take some of the pain for him it reminds me of how hard it was for Steven when I was in labor. Men hate feeling powerless. And...it reminds me how I didn't get Ethan circumcised just because I couldn't stand to think of him in so much pain.
Service centers us as women. Loving is what we do. Doesn't it feel good to focus on those traits?
I really admire the conclusions you've come to in this blog. There are things that are indigenous to us and it feels good to be who we truly are. But it certainly doesn't happen very often, for me anyway, and it seems like we are sabotaged so much along the way. It seems we have a long arduous journey in life to reach that goal. It makes the discussion going on in Khrys's blog all the more important.
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