Take a Break

We discovered a leak in our garage when I was getting ready to take Tim back to the hospital after his weekend home during his two week hospital stay in early December. It was raining, so we did the best we could to cover the area where it seemed to be coming in. After he got home from the hospital he went out on the deck and pulled part of the siding off to figure out the problem. It was worse than he originally thought. Apparently the builders did a poor job when they built the deck. They left it so water could go straight down into the wall during every rain. Luckily it was just in one spot, but a large amount of the wood there was rotten. We called our insurance, and they sent someone out to look at it. With our $1000 deductible, they really weren't going to be out anything. So Tim decided he could save us some money by fixing it himself.

He basically just covered it up through the holidays to buy time to fix it. Yesterday he went out there and began working on it. He was feeling good, so he thought it would be a good day for it. His doctors have been trying to teach him to take a lot of breaks so he doesn't have so many bad days. He worked for quite awhile, then he came inside when I finished cooking lunch. After eating he decided he needed to rest awhile. He rested for a couple of hours, then he went back out to work on it.

This morning he was in a great deal of pain. This was an indication to me that I need to convince him to slow down when he's feeling good. Almost without fail he is in a lot of pain afterward. Mid-day he was feeling a little better, so he convinced himself that if he went out to work on it he would feel better. He worked for a bit, then he came in and laid down. He just couldn't go anymore. Tonight he went back out for a bit, then he came in and went straight to the couch.

It's hard to make him stop when he's feeling good because I know how much it helps him mentally to be able to do things. I need to start reminding myself, though, of how down he will be the next day when he can't get out of bed. I'm going to try to do a better job of making sure he takes a break often enough. He does look really cute in his toolbelt, though. :-)

Yep, that's my hubby!