Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day

Monday night was a dark, evil time for me.

It seemed things were conspiring against me.

Oh, the evening started off innocuous enough. I picked up something for supper at the grocery store (my idea of cooking is to get a rotisserie chicken at Price Cutter), then went to the library for something to read and a couple of videos to watch.

I didn’t have any wrecks on the way home, and made it in the door just fine.

That’s when the fun began.

My little blind dog, Willis, left me a couple of tapered treasures in front of my recliner. Westies tend to have periods when they “forget” their training, and forget to hold their bodily functions until someone gets home and takes them to go “poopie.”

After cleaning up that mess, I decided to pop in one of my videos and relax a while.

I got the video in, and started to put my groceries in the refrigerator.

I got as far as the shopping cart.

Phyllis has a collapsible cart with wheels that she uses for laundry. As storage space is at a premium in her bedroom, she had it propped near the old upright piano in the living room. An empty PVC pipe and mesh laundry hamper stood nearby.

Well, I hit the wheel of her cart with my foot, coming down flush on the laundry hamper and rendering it to plastic splinters, wheels and mesh netting. I continued my downward fall, hitting my face and left arm on the TV stand and a nearby ash and oak end table.

I got up dazed and hurting.

Initially, I thought I had poked my left eye out. I brought a hand to my throbbing head, then back down to check for blood. Nope, nothing, but it sure felt bruised.

I hobbled to my feet, shakily gaining my balance. My left knee throbbed worse than it did several years back, when a 155-pound quarterback knocked me flat while I was standing on the sidelines taking photos at a McDonald County High School football game. My left arm ached.

I limped into the bathroom, and checked myself in the mirror. A small welt was below my left eye, my left arm was abraded and bruised, and my left knee skinned and swollen.

I pulled myself together, ate some supper, kicked back and watched my video.

All was fine until Phyllis came home. My tom-cat, Mo-Man, decided he wanted to go out for a little bit.

Phyllis opened the door to let him out, and Willis decided now was the time to give chase. He barreled after Mo-Man, chasing the cat out the door.

Willis then decided to explore the backyard and thoroughly enjoy his freedom. But there’s one problem: Willis is blind, and unfamiliar with the layout of the backyard, as it’s steep and we don’t take him for walks back there.

So here Phyllis and I are, two people on canes, trying to call our blind dog back to the house at midnight.

Finally, at wits’ end, I borrowed Phyllis’ flashlight and made an agonizingly slow and painful trip down the hill, where I found Willie bewildered by a brush pile. I guided him out of the brush and tried to put him on his leash.

He began growling.

“I’m not listening to this!” I told him. “You’re not in trouble, but you will be if you keep this up!”
At that, Willie shut up and let me tether him and take him back up the hill. At times, I had to pull him along, while other times, he pulled me.

It was truly a no-good day, but it was much better than a recent Tuesday night, when I rode out of the Daily office on a gurney into a waiting ambulance.

I’d just had outpatient surgery for a MRSA infection a few weeks previously, and had been experiencing some lower back pain, but didn’t think much of it.

I should have known something was up.

That Tuesday evening, while I was working on the next day’s paper, the pain got increasingly worse. I tried to stand to alleviate some of the pressure, when my back locked. I couldn’t finish standing up, I couldn’t sit back down, I couldn’t move my legs for the constant back spasms on my left side.

Todd got Rick, who called the ambulance personnel, who took me to the emergency room for my first-ever ambulance ride.

The crew at the emergency room pumped me full of morphine, did a CT scan and started IVs of antibiotics, as it was determined I had not kidney stones, but a bad kidney infection.

Nope, Monday night was gnarly, but it could have been much worse. I could have gashed my head open on the TV stand and bled to death on the living room floor.

And for that, I’m truly thankful.

John Ford is managing editor of the Daily News.