I was actually doing better since my last depression post, for the most part. Just busy with my job, getting ready for a big work trip to London again, the trip where Harper broke her arm hours before our plane left for Europe. That was fun.

My computer keeps crashing. So I haven’t uploaded any photos really. Actually, I haven’t taken many photos in the last couple months either. I took my laptop to the genius bar once and it was fixed long enough for me to get home and try and use it and then it crashed again. I haven’t had the energy to take it back. Depression can suck the wind out of you, too.

There have been great times in the last many weeks – a good time in London and Scotland with Jennifer, the kids turned four and had a fun party, using our new grill in the back yard, spending time with family, the blessing of another day.

And then, four days after Harper’s cast came off, on Saturday, April 21, I broke my leg. Volunteering for Habitat For Humanity.

I wish it was a good story, like falling off the roof putting on roof tiles, or hanging drywall from the ceiling or something cool, but it’s not. Truth is, it had rained inches the day before, and as construction sites are wont to be, it was very muddy. The kind that you sink into and get stuck in. I happened to get stuck as I stepped and slid in uneven ground and mud and started falling left before I could get my left foot unstuck. Since there was no joint at the necessary location, gravity created one for me about 4 inches above my ankle.

Within a couple hours we had an x-ray that confirmed a break in my fibula and the ER sent me on my way, splinted, with orders to see an orthopedic surgeon on Monday. “But I won’t need surgery, right?” I asked. “Probably not,” the doctor said. I spent most of the remainder of the weekend like this:

So that Monday, I saw the doctor and knew right away where this was going when he pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. Note: when an orthopedic surgeon starts drawing pictures, you’re going to have to have surgery.

Broken fibula. Torn ligaments. Will need a plate and screws. And I heard little else because why couldn’t I just get a cast for a couple weeks and be done? Instead, I had an Open Reduction Internal Fixation (ORIF) procedure on Thursday, April 26, and then spent much of the next six days like this:

The pain prior to surgery hurt like hell, namely because the splint wasn’t fully immobilizing the lower leg. The pain post-surgery was nothing like I had ever felt before, but that lasted only a few days. I was back at work 6 days post-surgery (something I do not recommend. Ever.).

The worst pain has been psychological, however. The confinement. The inability to walk. The isolation. The feeling that I am stuck. The having to modify and adapt. The instructions to be non-weight-bearing, not that I could bear weight on my leg anyway. The inability to DO much of ANYTHING. And because of it, I have seen many dark days since April. Days when I have cried hours at a time, sometimes all day. Days where I had to sit in a parking lot trying to compose myself so I could be presentable going into the office. Days when I haven't wanted to say a word to anyway. Days where breathing was exhausting. Days that have gone too long and bedtime couldn't come soon enough.

I try to focus on the positive – how amazing Jennifer has been handling EVERYTHING while I am mostly out of commission, that we are all generally healthy, that we have a home and jobs, and that at least my inability to walk is temporary, even if it does seem like an eternity.

Harper and Mateo often kiss my leg and Harper, who is familiar with the pain of a broken bone, will say “Mommy, I am so sorry this happened to you.” Mateo, on the hand, shares my sentiments: “Mommy, why is your leg still broken. It’s taking a LONG TIME!” I know, buddy, I know.

On the left is my leg two weeks post surgery, just before they took the staples out (ouch!) and put a cast on.

June 6. That's fifteen more days until I get my cast off and start learning to walk again. And my next hair appointment? July 9. We'll see how long my hair is then.

It was 1:15 p.m. and I made a call to the pediatrician's office, which was closed until 1:30, so we decided to just head there. I could tell from the small protrusion on the inside of her arm that it was broken, but we needed and xray to be sure. I mean, with this look? Hello, it's broken.

The doctor confirmed it was likely broken, but then mentioned things we hadn't considered. Things like "growth plate" and "setting with anesthesia" and "pins".

Ummmmmm......

So he sent us on to Texas Children's Hospital. By then, it was nearing 2:30pm, Harper wouldn't let anyone but me carry her. Have I mentioned how hot and humid it is in Houston, Texas?

Thankfully, the pediatrician had given her something for the pain, so after being triaged, they put her in a sling and she was coloring in the emergency room waiting room like a champ.

Here came the tricky part and the conversation with the nurse went a little like this:

"Hi, listen, I know y'all are busy, and we all know that her arm is broken, it's just a matter of to what extent. And I was just wondering, if there was any way you could see to us quickly because her other mother and I are supposed to leave for the airport in three...HOURS. Overseas. And it would be so great if we could know if she's going to have to have surgery or just a cast, you know, before we get on a flight we can't cancel."

Something like that.

And here's how it played out: the nurse, the radiology department, and the pediatric orthopedic down right RALLIED and got us through the maze and into the cast room like THAT.

She chose hot pink, of course.

We got out of there with thirty minutes to go. Thirty minutes to get her to our friends' home where Mateo and Harper would stay the first two nights, before moving onto another friends' home the second two nights, before heading to our own home where my mom and sister would come in for the weekend.

As you can see, she's adjusted just fine.

In fact, her teachers told us upon our return that they are having to watch her on the playground. Why? I asked. Is it because other kids are being too rough? No, she said, because she continues to try to get up on the monkey bars. One handed.

My therapist asked me if I ever thought that at thirty-eight I'd have a partner and two kids and a house and stable employment, and freedom to be creative. I told her I never really thought about it.

To be honest, six months ago, I didn't expect I'd live to see my thirty-eighth birthday.

What I do know is that I am blessed. Every day. Some days when I am drowning, the blessings in my life are the only things that put one foot in front of the other. Most days, my cup runneth over.

I floated through the day carried along by birthday wishes from friends and family. And cupcakes.

Thank you for sitting shotgun on this sometimes crazy ride.

This left me with the boy, a rare treat.

I told him we would go have special time and he was so excited that he ran upstairs and got himself dressed. As in by himself. And I think he did rather well: jeans, white tee, pirate belt, and black boots.

Our special time consisted of getting his hair cut, followed by lunch joined by Matou.

He even got dessert (to share with us). It was his first ever brownie and he loved it.

We wrapping up with story time with the two of us.

It was perfect.

Is it just me or does he looking five and not three?

It also just so happened that the Saints would be playing for a playoff birth two days before the title game. A perfect football weekend. Well, until LSU decided not to show up AT ALL, but whatever.

We were to have driven to New Orleans together, but a particularly needy child coupled with some last minute litigation at work would keep me in Houston an extra day. Just as well. Jennifer had some small-town LSU t-shirt shopping to do and I was able to find a flight that would keep me home with the kids an extra day - something I needed as much as the they did - and arriving to our friends' downtown suite just in time for the Saints game.

I also took an evening away to catch up with my dear friend, Anu. Four of us met for dinner at John Besh's famed restaurant, August, for a grand evening of food, drink, and people watching.

The day of the game, I had some work come up so after we delivered some food to the suite, I sat down and did some work. Jennifer snapped this photo of me reviewing a contract at noon. With a bloody mary by my side. I texted that photo to my boss.

Oh, yes. I did. (And he was jealous.)

Jennifer's step-dad works for a big oil services company and he got us in to their pre-game party for some down home food.

And then I got a call from Anu saying that her friend's party (hosted by a Birminham-based bank) had some space for us. So we picked up and took a stroll across the quarter.

And ran into Senator Mary Landrieu along the way. Her brother is the current mayor of New Orleans.

Only in New Orleans will the police stop traffic on one of the busiest streets in the city and then escort a second line from the river down to the Superdome. And I found myself in the fray.

Of course, the Tigers were dismal at best, so with two minutes to go, we found ourselves at Harrah's Casino.

And there, Jennifer and a friend went and played poker while another friend and I played the penny slots. It was grand.

The whole weekend was grand.

By the time Easter arrives, Jennifer and I will have taken three trips together, just us. Not only is that remarkable in and of itself, but it should be noted how remarkable it is that we have friends and family who are pinch hitting for us by taking over the children while we are gone. We are so very lucky.

She wanted me to lay by her but wanted me out of her room. When I got up to leave, she cried and kicked louder as I reached for the door. So I returned to her bedside as she asked and then she said go away. I offered a compromise: I will lie down on the floor until you fall asleep. Okay, she said through sobs and stuttered breaths. But hold my hand, she said. And she looked over the edge of the bed to make sure I was there, as if my touch wasn’t sufficient, make sure I was there in the right place, her right place, she had to see that my body was there. And that’s how she fell asleep. I burrowed my head into the carpet, my arm stretched upward to the edge of her bed, holding my daughter’s hand, and began crying. Crying because it had taken twenty minutes of inconsolable for her to fall asleep and then only because she cried herself there and not because I had given her comfort. Crying because all that feeling she felt filled the room and I breathed it in and I felt as helpless as she did.

When I knew she was asleep, I made my way downstairs. Most Sundays, we nap while the kids are napping. Except this time, when I put my head to the pillow, I just kept crying. And I didn’t stop for hours. I was overwhelmed not by Harper, but by the weight of my world going dark.

******

I felt myself slipping in the summer. We were in the throws of selling our home, preparing to buy another, wrought with the tension of a relationship pulled in different directions with little opportunity to reconnect. There were days that I couldn't bring myself to get in the car to pick up the kids after school. I wasn’t sleeping well and couldn’t turn off the To Do list in my head. I pressed forward. I can just-take-a-deep-breathe my way and rationalize my way out of just about anything, but in mid-August, an upper respiratory infection knocked the wind out of me, and then I ignored it, and then I ended up with pneumonia, and then a month later I was diagnosed with severe asthma.

It’s hard to ignore yourself when you can’t breathe.

*******

There are angels among us.

There is the friend who graciously agreed to make meals for our children in the first week of our renovation. And then for another two weeks when we still had no kitchen and I was in the depths of depression. And then another week when a family member took ill and it turned our lives upside down. Again. A month she made our kids’ lunches and delivered them to the classroom and took their lunch kits home each day so that I could put my energies into surviving.

There was the family that brought us three days of food the Monday after thanksgiving. I don’t know the family. I just know that they’re in my mother’s of multiples group and they drove nearly thirty miles to get to our house from theirs.

There has been our contractor, who one day I walked into the house, the day I requested two weeks off from work to get things straightened out, was on the floor in the laundry room rewiring vents and outlets so that the washer and dryer would be the way I wanted them to. Though he knew nothing of my personal struggles, my eyes welled up with tears and I thanked him for taking care of me, of us.

There has been our friend and interior design consultant who showed up when I needed her most, handled the movers, brought bedding to the house for us to choose from, sent me photos of lighting and other accessories, and generally did the shopping for us when decisions were made.

There have been two good friends who have served us unconditionally, spontaneously, meticulously, with all their hearts, with their time that could have been spent elsewhere. And they have loved on our children as their own, even at times having them for a sleepover, or joining us for family dinner on a Tuesday night.

And there has been Jennifer, who has been a rock when I have been water rushing over, who has been my strength, the strength of our family, picking up my pieces, even as she has been blindsided by cancer on her side of the family.

There have been weeks when I wasn’t sure I would make it, and the only reason I did was because there were people who carried my burdens so that I would have the strength to get through the day.

Kindness can be so overwhelming in the best kind of way.

*******

How does it feel, my therapist asked, the darkness. Sometimes it feels heavy and cold and windy like a coastal fog on an early winter day, the kind that gets in your bones and stays for hours. Sometimes it feels like electricity, pulsing beneath my skin moving about my body in an unpredictable way. Sometimes it feels like a tornado whose funnel begins in my chest and crashes through my insides destroying everything in its path while on the outside I am a calm and sunny day. Sometimes it feels like I am in an ocean, treading water with a soaking wet blanket over me, no shore in sight. Sometimes it just feels so sad and overwhelming and I get anxious because I don't like to feel sad or overhwhelmed and it all takes my breath away because there's nothing I can pinpoint. Sometimes it feels like I am a kite, wanting so much for the line to be cut so that I can be carried away by the wind, but I know that that string is my tether to this world, string made of my children and my spouse, and my family, and if it is cut, then they fall. The kite would fall too, I know that.

*******

So here we are, six months since free fall, and I’ve got an amazing handful of friends who have been through the thinnest of times, two amazing kids, and my rock, Jennifer. Oh, and an amazing therapist, a patient psychiatrist, and some meds. Between allergies, asthma, and depression, I’m a walking pharmacy.

I’ve vacillated between disclosing my struggles and not saying anything at all, but I figure what the hell. I very well could not be alive had I tried to go it alone, had I not opened up to others, had I not accepted help and love and prayers. I write this as a reminder that I am not alone.

You are not alone.

We are not alone.