After my husband’s crash, he pleaded with me to hire a nurse to look after him. Weeks later, the kind young caregiver hesitated at my door, shaking. “I can’t keep this to myself anymore… It’s about Bryce.” I steadied myself, not knowing her next words would shatter my marriage.
The hospital called at 11:47 p.m. Bryce’s car had skidded off the road and slammed into a pole. The staff were prepping him for urgent surgery.
Memories flooded my mind: Bryce’s grin the night we met, making me feel like the only person in the world, how fast we became a team. Bryce was my other half. How could I go on if he didn’t pull through?
I drove to the hospital in a fog, tears blurring my vision as I recalled the day he proposed. We’d only been together two years, but when it feels right, you don’t second-guess the timing. Just last night, we’d been dreaming about our future kids.
“Two kids,” Bryce had said. “A boy and a girl, with your eyes and my hardheaded streak.”
“Good luck to us if they inherit your stubbornness,” I’d teased, and he tickled me until I was gasping with laughter. Now, everything had flipped upside down.
Bryce was already in surgery when I got to the hospital. His right leg was badly broken, they said. I waited for hours.
It felt like an eternity before a doctor in scrubs came to speak with me. “Your husband’s doing okay,” the surgeon said. “We fixed the bone, but there’s some nerve damage.
He might walk again, but it’ll take months of rehab. Physical therapy, pain management, the whole deal.”
My legs nearly buckled with relief. He was alive.
But the words “nerve damage” and “might walk again” rang in my ears. “Can I see him?”
A nurse led me to Bryce’s room. He was hooked to monitors, groggy from the anesthesia, but when I took his hand, he squeezed it softly and murmured my name.
“We’ll get through this,” I whispered. “We’ll do whatever it takes.”
But reality hit harder than love ever could. Bryce was in a full leg cast and needed help with everything.
He couldn’t shower, dress, or even grab a drink. My days became a blur of rushed lunch breaks and sleepless nights checking on him. Have you ever been so exhausted your body hurts?
That was me every day for weeks. Between helping Bryce to the bathroom, propping his leg on pillows, and doing the clumsy “bed-to-chair shuffle” the therapist taught me, I felt like I was running a race with no finish line. “I can’t just lie here useless while you wear yourself out,” he muttered one night, eyes shiny with what I thought was frustration.
The next morning, he begged me. “Please, hire someone. I can’t be alone all day like this.” Then, with a cautious look, he added, “Or maybe Mom could stay?
I need family, not strangers.”
The idea of Myrna moving in made my stomach churn, but Bryce kept pushing, so I called her. When she quoted her “caregiving rate” over the phone, I nearly dropped it. “Two hundred a day?” I said.
“Myrna, that’s more than I earn. That’s more than trained nurses charge.”
“You get what you pay for,” she huffed. “Bryce deserves top-notch care.”
That was one thing Myrna and I agreed on, so I hired Nora instead.
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