Weekend Plans Post: Recovery

Everything went as well as could have been reasonably expected.

There was snow coming down and so we woke up in the middle of the dang night and drove there carefully, slow and steady. Got there at o’dark-30, waited. Watched snow accumulate. Waited, waited, waited. Then we waited some more. They finally called us into the room where we got changed from the human clothing into the hospital clothing, had various tubes and wires attached, and then we waited some more. We worried that we’d have to reschedule because of doctors not showing up due to the snow. Had a fun conversation with the nurses, the anesthesiologist, the chaplain, the surgeon, and various people whose job it was to wander the hallways and stick their heads in the door and, hurray, everybody had showed up. Then, more or less right at the time that they closed the cafeteria in order to switch over from breakfast to lunch, they came in and wheeled Maribou off and told me to go downstairs for a while.

Okay. Fine. I sat down in the dining area and doomscrolled until the cafeteria doors opened and IMMEDIATELY FIFTY PEOPLE SWARMED IN AND GOT IN LINE AHEAD OF ME.

Okay. Fine. Stand in line and doomscroll.

The cafeteria had a bunch of stuff that obviously took effort and care and were I someone who ate at that place every other day, I’d probably have gotten one of the beautiful entrees. As it was, I asked for the cheeseburger with fries, a drink, and some mozza sticks.

Seventeen bucks. That’s not bad. Would have been $12.50 had I avoided the cheese sticks (which, seriously, should have been dunked for another 3 minutes) but, all in all, it was a fine burger and fries and drink and I thought “Five Guys better watch out…” as I sat and doomscrolled some more. Hey, it stopped snowing.

Finished the food, went upstairs to doomscroll.

They give you a little card with a long number on it. You go up to the monitors and find your number on the monitor and it says stuff like “Preparing for procedure” or “Procedure in progress” or “Complete” or “Recovering”. And I sat and sat and waited for “Procedure in progress” to turn into “Complete” and then waited for them to come get me and so I doomscrolled some more.

And then they got me and Maribou ate some crackers and then we did the stuff you gotta do before they entertain letting you leave and changed back into our clothing from the morning and they wheeled her down to the entrance and I pulled up the car and we drove home and went to bed.

And, a week later, we’ve mostly had conversations about stuff like “even though it’s X days after surgery, I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER!” and “Can you make me some toast with your bread instead of with my bread?”

So… whew. Now, that’s not to say that we’re *GOOD* yet. If the old score was something in the teens and the new score is something in the twenties, you can say “that’s twice as good!” and be pleased with that while still recognizing that a score in the 20s is pretty crappy. But we’re on an upward slope and everything, seriously, is sooooo much better.

So this weekend will be spent recovering some more. With, of course, some of the nurses at home:

So… what’s on your docket?

(Featured image is “Winky”. Photo taken by Maribou.)