Friday, November 30, 2012

How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 30

...here we are once again...
Episode 30 – November 29 – I slept quite well last night with the exception of a minor wakeup call from my bladder, I was out cold from 10 PM until 6 AM when I started my morning exercise regime.
The vampires returned again. This time it was for my blood count. Hey wait a minute...blood...count...now I think I may be onto something here. When I questioned the lab assistant about why they always showed up before the sun was all up he stuttered and mumbled something about shift schedules and other nonsense.
 I estimate by now when you include my glucose testing, blood testing, blood thinners and IV’s, I have been stabbed well over one hundred times so far. Speaking of the glucose I’m still registering under 6 with another 5.7. That’s a good thing!
They pulled another nurse out of the casual pool for me and today it was Adam, a self-proclaimed Polish gypsy prince. Actually he was quite the entertainer. I put him to work early after he brought my morning meds. We had a product evaluation discussion on the pros and cons of different bed pans. We’ll leave the discussion here for now unless you would like me to continue on the topic.
The best thing about Adam is he is proactive and checking in with everyone at least three or four times an hour while some nurses you’ll never see until you hit the call bell.
I am still fighting a never ending battle with the nurses about my curtains. They just love opening them up both intentionally and unintentionally and leaving them that way. And for good measure the odd little cleaning lady decided that a good time to replace my curtains would be while Adam and I were planning out the aforementioned procedure. At least I have now defeated the nurses with my trusty reacher and my increased flexibility. I’m more flexible than I was previously but I’m still not ready to audition for Cirque du Soleil.
I have also noticed the upper body work I’ve been doing is paying off. Everything tends to be a bit firmer, not totally ripped but definitely firmer.
As per most days, lunch was reasonably good; penne pasta with a very meaty marinara sauce and a hardy corn chowder.
Jenny, the Cap U student, came by after lunch with the senior physio and put my knees through the longest workout yet where I could actually feel my knees getting tired.
The noise in this room is driving me nuts. The woman across from me, Colette has a constant parade of family members coming and going. Anne, the 100 year old woman, who herself is quite the trooper and rarely complains has this one visitor that comes in at least twice a day and to compensate for her being nearly deaf uses his booming voice to prattle on for a couple of hours at a time. Marguerite, the 94 year old beside has this whiny voice at the best that drives you nuts whenever she speaks and it gets even worse when she is in pain or complaining. My only escape is to crank up my tunes to try and drown out as much as possible so I can concentrate on my reading and writing. Yes, this may seem selfish and lacking in compassion but I have my own mental well being at stake here.
For the most part during the past thirty days, I have managed to keep my spirits up and taken a positive approach to my recovery but sometimes it gets hard. I keep trudging along looking ahead for whatever tomorrow brings.  
Adam arranged to get me up in my chair at around 3:30 with me having to supervise the team. I like being the boss. I couldn’t last that long because someone had left a folded flannel sheet on top of my Roho cushion that defeated its purpose and my butt got sore way too quickly. The Roho cushion is an inflatable device consisting of individual cells so when you shift in the chair it reduces the pressure on your backside. When you at one without the cover it is extremely strange looking. In fact, when I was in the medical supply business, they always creeped me out.
I was back in the bed by five and got back to my reading. Because there were visitors next to me I needed some block out music. A couple of years ago for St. Patrick’s Day, the Crown Prince added some Irish Rebel music to my playlist. Irish Rebel music is not conducive to reading because you always want to sing along. On a secondary note about this genre, anyone familiar with Irish Rebel ballads will know they always end badly; the hero always dies.
When the dinner fairy came by I had a choice between sweet & sour pork and baked chicken. I decided to gamble on the pork but somewhere down the line someone changed my order and I ended up with extremely foul fowl.
I have just started watching the HBO series “The Franchise” a documentary series on the 2011 San Francisco Giants following up on their 2010 championship. It only took two minutes into the first episode to reconfirm the consensus opinion about Brian Wilson; that boy ain’t right in the head.
With the help of Layla and the magic blue pill along with Rachel Maddow and the Green River Killer I found my way to slumberland.
To be continued...

3 comments:

  1. :)

    Only 20 or some days to go....

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  2. it is amazing that you are still sane after 5 weeks!!!

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  3. @Sharon - Have you ever known me to be sane? hee hee
    @Colleen - Don't jinx it! ;-)

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