Ball Game!

 Weeks and weeks ago, back when we were all fully-vaccinated and life was good, our son and daughter-in-law came to visit.  SUCH A JOY TO BEHOLD.  

Such a joy.

At some point, our son went out to our hay pasture/meadow, (we call it pasture, our hay man calls it our hay meadow, which sounds so much more poetic and peaceable.), and he mowed us a tee box.

I was not privy to what a tee box was.  Come to find out, it's a swath of dirt (or grass, in our case).  "The name derives from the tee used to elevate a golf ball before striking it to commence play."  Ha.  It's rural Kansas, you all.  

After our son mowed the tee box, his wife, (and my amazing daughter-in-law), and I went to the Goodwill in search of:  

Two drivers. 
Two putters.
Two #7s.  (Not privy to that, either.)

Guess what?!   Goodwill has a PLETHORA of drivers, putters, and #7s!!!

I mowed us a fairway: a big long strip of green, in which it is hoped our balls would land, rather than the tall grass on either side of our fairway.  Golly.  It's beginning to sound like Royal Troon, in Scotland!

And so it went.  We hit balls every morning.  Daughter-in-law & I had purchased hot pink golf balls, so as to spot them in the pasture/hay meadow.  But come to find out, that Spouse o' Mine, colorblind, cannot discern hot pink from anything else out there in the hay meadow.  (See what I am doing?  Abstaining from "pasture" in exchange for the more bucolic "meadow".)

Son and daughter-in-law went back home to their Pacific Northwest lives, and we are still in rural Kansas, whacking hot pink golf balls around the pasture.  Excuse me: Meadow.

Two weeks ago, we had a couple of gorgeous mornings in the 50º mark.  I took full advantage out in our tee box and fairway, whacking ball after ball after ball after ball into the fairway and also into the great tall grass abyss on either side (more often than not...).  Such fun!

Such fun...until the following day, Saturday, when I awoke and ambled in for morning coffee.  I mentioned to that Spouse o' Mine that my back needed a bit of a rub.  "I must have done something." I said.  After a 45-second back rub (that's all he's good for first thing in the morning and before coffee.), I declared myself healed.  And so I was for a couple of hours.  But then that niggling back pain returned, and travelled and meandered around, visiting one muscle and then triggering another.  This was not enjoyable.  I took a regular-strength Tylenol (because that's as strong as we have in our home...)  It took the edge off, and I thought I was good to go.

Well.  By late afternoon, I could not find comfort, no pain-free position to sit or lay in.  Nothing was working.  I took one, and thirty minutes later, another Tylenol. Pain edged off, for a bit.  By late afternoon, I announced that I was in serious shape, and we had to make a decision about what to do/how to proceed.  We (seriously: joint decision!) decided to watch the Olympic Marathon, and then if the pain was still REAL, he would take me in to the ER. 

Marathon over, pain is REALLY real, and so we hopped into the car for our 17-mile drive to the ER.

Three miles into our drive, I exclaim that I don't have my purse - no ID!  Go back!  Go back!  He replies that I can use his ID.  I look at him, incredulously.  How would that work, exactly?  (That was the thought bubble above my head, not the words out of my mouth.)  He finds a spot in the road to do a Uey, and we head back.  And that's when I have an epiphany:  "I should call my physician." 

Well, it is 8:00 pm on Saturday evening, so what chance is there of hearing from my physician?  I call and leave a detailed message with his answering service nevertheless.  And then that Spouse o' Mine and I discuss (#argue) about his letting our dog out into the hot evening while we venture on into town to the ER.  As we drive into town, we see the brilliant lightning filling the skies to the near west, coming our way.  Seriously??!

Segue to the ER, where he lets me off curbside, I walk in and put myself in the Saturday night queue, and return to the car to relate the Covid protocol, and suggest to him that he should return home and let poor Lucy GSD back indoors before she gets struck by lightning or hail.  He returns home,  I return, walking like Lurch, to the ER.  My physician's colleague returns my call an hour later, I tell him where I am, and he says, "That's good!  I worry that you have kidney stones.  You are just where I would suggest you be."

It was Saturday night, the university students were back, I was not "urgent care" - in fact, if it had not been for the worry that my problem was gall bladder ("Where exactly IS my gall bladder?"), kidneys, heart attack (women present differently when it comes to that fatal malady) or other...I could have gone to a "ready-care", but I was thinking about blood tests and urinalysis and lab works and surgery and....Gah!

Four ambulance arrivals later, I was seen by the attending ER physician.  I explained my travelling back pain.  He looked at my chart.  He asked pertinent questions.  He remarked that I was a "Duffer".  I told him I had no idea what that meant.  He told me it meant "golfer". 

Ha!  You Readers,  Google "Duffer".

Anyway, he asked me to show him my swing.  I did, and as I did, he touched the very part of my back that had been giving me anguish.

So, fast-forward to the "and they lived happily-ever-after" chapter.  I am alive and well and maybe this weekend I will venture out and hit not an hour's-worth of hot pink golf balls, but maybe a smidgen.  Just enough to get  - ha! - the ball rolling again.