There were tears in my eyes today at work.

I got a missed call from my brother and I knew instantly that something was wrong.

He never calls me.

First chance I got I returned his call and my mother answered.

Instantly I felt sick. Extremely sick. Its amazing how quickly life can turn from relatively carefree to chaotic.

Background info: my brother had a discogram (an X-ray examination of the intervertebral discs performed by injecting dye into the center of the injured discs) yesterday.

During the night he had spasms in his back and extreme pain. By morning he couldn't walk, he couldn't even stand. My mum told me this at work her voice betraying her panic. My mother exposed emotions made it even worse. My mother has endured quite alot of drama in her life and shes always in control well at least in front of us.

I'm not even sure what happened then. I have vague memories of people trying to talk to me as I waited to tell the team leader that I had to leave work NOW and me ignoring them or being not particuarly nice. All I could think about was horrible it was. My brother is the athletic one. The sporty, popular, good looking one. If somebody should not be able to walk it should be me. For fucks sake its my little brother. He's only 22!

Everything between now and then is pretty much a blur. I remember buying him candy while I waited to know which hospital to go to and somebody taking my phone, it was down at the counter for all of about a minute- two at the most. Mother fucker! I had to think at that stage so i used a pay phone and called my home phone then got my brothers mobile which I had to write with lipbalm on the payphone booth. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Later tears in my brothers friend eyes. Trying to remain upbeat in front of my brother. Joking and feeling sick. Morphine and all sorts of other heavy painkillers for my brother.

There is hope though. He has feeling in his legs, his toes and the doctor suggests that there is probably not permanent damage. I have never hated that word more than I do tonight.