Chronicles of Convalescing - Part II

Hospitals are not meant as long-term housing options. Sure, meals and clean-up are provided for you, but trust me… the trade off is not worth it.

Originally, I was scheduled to stay in the hospital 4-5 days. Then, once the operation began and they found the hidden tumor in there, my doctor revised my “release date” to Monday, which would mean six days in-patient. NOT my idea of fun.
So, I dutifully walked around the surgical recovery area approximately every other hour, beginning the second day of my stay. I stayed one step ahead of the pain by staying on schedule with the pain meds. I concentrated on happy, healing thoughts…well, except on Saturday morning when Argentina lost 4-0 to Germany in the World Cup Quarterfinals and my hopes were dashed for yet another four years. Beautiful, and I do mean beautiful, flower arrangements delivered to me from the Captain, my extraordinary mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and her husband, my co-workers (whom I have left in the lurch with workload while I recover at home), and two of my dearest friends, helped to keep my blood pressure low and my spirits high. The live orchid my daughter brought when she came on Saturday morning helped to ease the aforementioned World Cup loss.

The best news of all came Saturday morning when Dr. Grover came in to check on me. After checking my incision and my vital signs, she decided to take the drain out (icky bloody thing) and pronounce me recovered enough to go home. Woo hoo!!! Two days early. So, stocked with four different prescriptions for pain management and red blood cell production, I got to take the triumphant wheelchair ride down to the revolving doors. We were quite the procession: the Captain and Katie carrying flowers, the patient care tech pushing the wheelchair and me doing my best Queen Elizabeth wave at the crowds lining the hallways.