Wednesday, November 14, 2012

How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 14


...Hey! I’m talking here...
Episode 14 – November 13 – The sleeping pills are working great, I’m getting some pretty good uninterrupted sleep although it takes a while to get rid of the grogginess.
I completed my first set of bed exercises by 5:45 AM so I’ve got some extra time to spare in my busy schedule.
My next task was to look after the Employment Insurance paperwork so I could sometime in the future get paid for my little ordeal. Luckily the form was short and the covering letter did not have to be too long so I’m set once the doctor fills out the rest and I get the letter printed and mailed off; all simple tasks but extremely hampered by my lack of mobility.
Sergio is my day nurse so I know things are going to be slow today. Oh well, you have a little extra time to kill, Donnelly. Remember you’ve already done your first set of bed exercises.
For once, I was excited about breakfast and when the tray arrived I saw them...Corn Flakes!!! Today was already a good day! I must still have been a bit elated and groggy because I almost committed a serious culinary faux pas. I was just about to spread the grape jelly on my whole wheat toast before the peanut butter! The horror!! The horror!!
Living in bed, I’ve learned a few ways to improvise. Normally, you have to wait forever for the nurse to set you up to brush your teeth and even longer for food services to pick up your tray. Disposing of the tray so I can get my laptop back up and running. I simply manage to turn it sideways and balance on the far end of the limited space overbed table. As for teeth brushing, I always order tea instead of coffee even though I get violently ill from tea. What comes on the tray is a mug of hot water with a teabag on the side.  The hot water works great for wetting my toothbrush and rinsing my mouth and the fruit cup transforms into a spit cup.
 After over a week of avoiding it, I had to inject myself with my blood thinning medication. Actually there is no need for me to learn how to do this because I only need the meds while I’m flat on my back to avoid clotting in my legs. I will not need the medicine when I get home because I will be ambulatory. There is no way to get this through to Sergio so I relented. Stabbing oneself goes against all laws of nature! Ouch!!
One of my best chemical friends in life is diphenhydramine more commonly known as Benadryl. I suffer from year round unknown airborne allergies and at home I take them like candy. It relieves my swollen sinuses and itchy eyes. Luckily I got Dr. Haaf to authorize them on my chart. However they will only give me 50 mils every 5 hours so I have to suffer. Unlike a lot of people Benadryl does not make me drowsy, it actually perks me up because it clears my airways.  I buy the stuff by the bucketful at K-Mart in Bellingham and am never far from a bottle of it.
Feeling lucky today I decided to take a gamble when the lunch fairy came by. The safe choice was the egg salad sandwich which I had previously; boring but passable. The second was tuna casserole which is always a crapshoot anywhere. Rolling the dice, I went for broke and called “tuna”. I dreaded my gamble shortly after that but by a stroke of luck they put the wrong thing on my tray and I got the egg salad sandwich. I check the tray inventory sheet and it did say “tuna casserole”. I counted my blessings and ate the sandwich along with a green salad and minestrone soup. Speaking of inventory cards, there have been days when I have had to check the sheet to see exactly what I was eating was supposed to be.
Besides writing this drivel, one of my other passions and time killers is reading. I am currently working my way through J.K. Rowling’s’ new tome “A Casual Vacancy”. I am thoroughly enjoying this slice of small town petty politics. Normally I would have raced through this volume in a couple of days but my concentration levels are so low I get tired after a few pages. Now if any of you have read this novel please don’t spoil it by telling me Lord Voldemort did it. ;-)
Talk about foreshadowing, I must have been napping when the dinner came along so I got dealer’s choice on my tray and I really had to check the inventory sheet to see what it was it was on my plate. Apparently it was BBQ chicken and perhaps it may have been. I will say it was meatish.
After completing the third set of my bed exercises, it dawned on me that the pain in my shoulder that I’d been dealing with since the summer had subsided so something must be going right.
The Crown Prince brought up a few DVD’s on Saturday and . I watched “Ponyo”  a Japanese anime piece co-produced by Disney. Cute but very wierd. ;-)

I have also figured out how to log into MsNBC so I can now enjoy Rachel Maddow; one of the most hated commentators by conservatives and the Religious Wrong because not only is she a liberal, she's a lesbian and even worse she's from San Francisco. I am so going to hell. ;-)
I am absolutely delighted to know that the world continues while I rest in bed. Telus sent me a bill for my home phone which of course will be sitting idle for the duration of the billing period.
Denise arrived and at least I knew I would be in good hands for the night. Alas no breakfast fairy. Crap!
So I swallowed my little blue dream pill and lay my head down to sleep.
To be continued...

5 comments:

  1. Ahhhhh.... yes.... the blue dream pills have been my friends for far too long.... sleep well, Dennis... dream sweet dreams without care. And keep us laughing. You are SO good at that!

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  2. Good stuff, Dennis. You make your boredom interesting.

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  3. Your sharp wit will hopefully get you through this ordeal. Great writing!

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  4. @Sharon - Why didn't you tell me about your blog.
    @Brad - Thanks
    @Tammy - as always thanks

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  5. A "meatish" meal.

    See! You should go vegan!

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