The weeks leading up to the conference I had been putting in really long days, (well it was actually long nights because when you're a stay at home mom who works part time, working hours tend to begin after you have the kiddos in bed), so I was pretty tired walking into the conference. The silver lining was that I would be at the hotel for a week and would be able to catch up on some sleep.
For those of you who know me, I'm super structured and organized when it comes to… well just about everything, haha, so I had everything planned to the T for last week. Every detail of the conference had been worked out and discussed, I had people lined up to watch my kids, had the clothes picked out ready to go, everything was set. But, as I've had to learn over and over again in my life, it's never that easy...
Literally as I was walking out the door on Sunday to head out to the hotel, Ryan started complaining about his back hurting. I didn't think much of it at the time, it was random, he couldn't remember doing anything to really hurt himself, so I chalked it up to stress, life, etc. Long story short, his back got so bad that we made a middle of the night trip to the ER on Monday, returned to urgent care on Thursday, and he basically spent a week in bed on pain meds to help him cope with the intense back pain. SERIOUSLY, this was NOT part of my plan.
The back pain was the strangest thing. Ryan is a tough guy, so for him to be pacing because he's in so much pain he can't stand it, well that's a big deal. We never discovered what exactly happened, but the best guess is that he strained it doing something, maybe lifting, and it gradually got worse. Stress probably added to the problem. Then once his back clenched up, he just had to give it time to release. In the mean time he had to use the meds to help ease the pain. It took a full week before he could function without the pain meds again. And then he got to spend a few days "detoxing" from those, which was pretty horrible too.
So all that was going down while I was trying to deal with the logistics of hosting a week long conference for about 100 people. The conference ended up going really well. Thank goodness I'm a planner and had everything worked out ahead of time! But regardless, by the end of the week I was more than ready to be home. I felt so bad that I wasn't there to help Ryan, but in some ways it was probably good that the kids and I were away so we weren't bothering him.
Mimi and Granne were such a huge help all week because they helped take care of the kids. We are so lucky to have them both nearby. One of the days Granne took the kids to the Butterfly Pavilion. I think they had a lot of fun! They also went to see the horses by the hotel.
Ryan did make it down to join us for dinner on Monday night. He was in a lot of pain, but it was still somewhat bearable at this point. Kelton stayed at the hotel with me all week, so he got to "participate" in a lot of the conference activities and hang out with me at lunch and stuff. :) (He was with Granne the rest of the time).
The one part of the conference I have to tell you about is an activity that I planned, an Amazing Race! It was intended to be fun and to help with some team building. We had people eating baby food, playing with legos, posing for pictures… it was great! I know you don't know any of these people, BUT it will give you an idea of what all was involved. :)
When we did get home, the girls were really sweet and wanted to help daddy feel better.
Welp, we made it though the week. I guess finals week in college does prepare you for the real world! Ryan is doing much better. It's going to take him a bit go get back to where he was before this whole crazy ordeal, but he's back at work and able to function now, which we are all so thankful for. Now it's on to the next thing… dose life ever slow down???
