Monday, December 3, 2012

How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 33

                                                                    
...and away we go again...
Episode 33 – December 2 – Last night’s sleep was interrupted several times but by 5:30 I was awake enough that I couldn’t get back to sleep so I started my exercise routine. I was going to say that I’m getting more energetic each but today was a bit of a setback in that department. I still felt good; just tired. The only problem with having more energy is I become more bored. Before I would get tired and lie back before I ever got bored. Today was a combination where I was bored but too tired to read or write for more than a few minutes at a stretch.
Barb was my day nurse again today and under normal conditions she works quite and it didn’t help today because they were short one nurse. Also on weekends they don’t nurses’ aides working because obviously the patients don’t require any care on Saturdays and Sundays and holidays. I cannot for the life of me figure out who determines where cost cuts are most beneficial. The hypocrisy is that when the Crown Prince brought me up my mail yesterday there was a bill and two separate statements for the cost of my leg braces. This of course, is while I’m still lying in bed upstairs in their hospital. Again I repeat “IF YOU ARE NOT WEARING SCRUBS GET THE F... OUT!!”
They hoisted me up into my wheelchair before lunch and it did energize me quite a bit.
But what really energized the most was a visit from my good friend and co-worker, Barb G. She is probably one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She is that special cog in the machine that keeps our department running smoothly or at least as smooth as possible. She brought with her a new stash of mandarin oranges and a couple of lottery tickets. BTW – Barb, you must have given me someone else’s tickets. No winners here. ;-) 
We had a great chat about work and our one true mutual love, baseball.
I had forgotten a cute story about yesterday. Marguerite’s granddaughter, Elizabeth and her boyfriend were up visiting. Marguerite made a comment regarding me “I don’t how he puts up with my whining and complaining.” I just looked at Elizabeth and held up my pink ear buds. Elizabeth just burst out laughing. I also thought it was sweet that Elizabeth brought a little Christmas tree to put next to her bed.
 Mom called last night it reminded of another little thing about hospitals that bugged. Mom was asking whether my extended benefits would pay for a private room. Actually I am covered but the problem is that I need to be on the orthopaedic floor both because they have the manpower to do my transfers from the bed and as well, I need to bed in a room with an overhead lift. There are only two private rooms on the floor and they are used for isolation patients and even then only one is lift equipped. My pet peeve is what they call semi-private rooms. These are rooms with two beds. It’s actually more difficult to be anti-social in a two person room than a four bed ward. In the ward, I can curtain myself off and block out the chaos. When there is only one other person in the room you are almost forced to have conversations. And what bugs me most is that “semi-private” is an oxymoron. Private is finite. It is either private or it isn’t.
All afternoon out of habit, I have been checking the NFL scores on the Sports Illustrated ticker until I realized I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about NFL scores except to find out how the 49ers did and they lost and to a lesser degree how the Seahawks made out and they won.
So I was finally able to find enough energy to finish Anne Rule’s “Green River, Running Red” about the Green River Killer. It should have taken me a couple of days to finish it but because of my lack of energy and concentration it took me closer to two weeks. Spoiler Alert: Gary Ridgeway did it!
I have now started a new novel that my friend, Mona brought up for me; “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. I have no clue what is about but I can tell you it’s long and the print is tiny. Sometimes it is great when someone gives you a book that they liked but you would have never picked up otherwise because it gets you out of a routine and usually it turns out for the good. The best example I could give was when someone lent me a copy of “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold,  a genre I would have never considered. I loved it and then Lorraine read it and loved it as well. (By the way the movie blew chunks).
Natasha returned as my night nurse after being taken away the other day as my day. She is great and extremely helpful even if her obsession with serial killers is a little frightening.
To be continued...

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