There were times over the past year-ish that I held my breath for the other shoe to drop, peaked in tucked-away closets looking for the skeleton—honestly Nick seemed too good to be true. He wandered into my life at a time when it felt like everyone in my heart was leaving or had already gone. I began our relationship with a very guarded nature, expecting to be disappointed eventually, and not wanting my heart too invested.

But, he keeps sticking around, even with all of the trouble I've been this year. He's always at my elbow, hand resting on the small of my back, offering me his strength when I have reached the end of mine.

Yesterday at work, my phone rang constantly, and it seemed to be a symphony between my clinic, a surgery scheduler, and my surgeon's assistant. Last Friday, I was told that I needed a pretty big surgery to remove the rest of my infection, and now I have two of the top UW surgeons scheduled to fix me up. Wednesday, they called to suggest more imaging and an outpatient surgery to see if they could do the big surgery with just one incision from the back (instead of having to do one from the front as well), and avoid having to to slice through bone and colon to get to the infection site.

In a period of about 2 hours yesterday, I was scheduled for an MRI (today), surgery work-up (yesterday), outpatient surgery (Tuesday), the next surgery work-up (12/18) and the next surgery (01/18). It was a stressful day and I never seem to lose this tired feeling lately. I called Nick around 10:00 and told him I had a 2:00 surgical work-up at the hospital. I didn't ask him to come with me, but there he was, wanting to be by my side and help me through. He left work early (it was my half-day) and showed up at my company to pick me up.

He's my transport for next Tuesday's procedure, he's the guy tasked out as bringing me a strong cuppajoe once they bring me to, and the one they instructed to let me sleep it off once I was home. Even though he jokes about it being a good time to go to a basketball game without me being fussy for being left behind, I know he won't do that...the Badgers don't play that day. ;-)



But more than that, he's the guy that had a lovely bouquet of flowers waiting for me when we got home yesterday afternoon, he's the guy that tucked my über-soft bouclé throw around me where I curled up on the couch while he did tasks around the house, and he's the guy who seems to wince as often as me when I'm feeling sore.

I guess now is the time to step back on trembling legs and admit that Nick is just that...good. My whole family seems to be going through bouts with poor health—in fact, three of us will be in hospitals next Tuesday—and just because I am how I am (and I'm gonna get yipped at for saying this), I won't take my problems to them when they have so much on their plates already...and I was only too prepared to tackle this solo...somehow. Turns out I don't have to...Nick wants to take care of me. I don't know why I should be so lucky, but I most certainly am.