Saturday, December 29, 2012

How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 59

 Episode 59 - December 28 – Today would have been the 61st birthday of one of my most beloved friend, Barb aka BJ. We were close friends for almost thirty years. She was always there for me if I needed a hug or a swift kick in the butt and believe there were many times both choices came in to play. I still have to urge to pick up the phone and call to tell her about the happy things and to ask for advice the not so happy things. If you’re on Facebook you can click on this link to my photo tribute that tells you all about our special friendship.
This also marks the end of the eighth week since my surgery.
My sleep was not quite as good as last night because Edna had some issues and the nurses were in and out several times. None the less, I was reasonably well rested being able to sleep on my side finally.
Cat is back was back as my day nurse again so I knew I’d be well looked after under the assumption that my big move would not likely come today.
Jayne, the charge nurse for the floor came into see me about a minor thing but ended up talking quite a bit longer. Basically, she is extremely unhappy with my progress but not because of me but the slowness of my treatment. She thinks that they should have weaned me off the overhead lift at least a week ago and I agree. She also felt that the physios should have me up walking at least twice a day and considering that there are very few elective surgery patients on the floor at this time of year and mostly long term elderly patients there is no reason not to treat someone that could benefit from it and get him up and going quicker.
Edna’s daughter, Carol, is almost as bad an influence on me as her husband. Edna’s financial advisors sent her a very large assortment from Cookies by George and Carol made sure I acquired a couple. Me like cookie!!
Bryan stopped by before lunch just because he was in town. What a good kid! :-)
Adrienne, the physio came in and wanted to know if I was up to doing some walking.  Well, the answer to that was obvious. They got everything set up by adjusting the bed and the walker and then we were in business. I surprised everyone by walking a lot further than they expected; at least three times longer than I did yesterday and I’m sure I could have gone further. Besides the fact that they are obviously going to slow with regard there is a time constraint on the physios. We also had another project to work on; the wheelchair transfer.
This is something that I had been mapping out in my mind for the last couple of days now that I could sit in the chair. Having worked in the wheelchair business I knew the basic mechanics of wheelchair transfers and had done it many times for demonstration purposes. Adrianne and I went over what we were going to do while we waited for Cat so she was aware of what we were doing and how I was getting back into bed. Our timing was great because one of the physios, Leanne, arrived from the fifth floor to find out how I transferred. Apparently they don’t have overhead lifts on the fifth floor. As a precaution Adrienne kept the sling in the chair in case we couldn’t get back manually. I made it no problem so we decided to try the reverse. I did it again on my own although it was pretty. Imagine a drunken walrus flopping onto a rock. Hey, I wasn’t auditioning for Swan Lake. So once again, I had to get back to the chair and managed fine.
Adrienne did something that so reminded me of BJ. Every time Barb would come over to my apartment, the first she would was run to the kitchen and grab a pitcher of water and perform emergency resuscitation on my plants. Adrienne took one look at my poinsettia on my table and rushed it over to the sink. Gardening indoors or outdoors has never been my forte.
One thing I am beginning to realize is that the longer one is laid up in bed the worse their concentration and short term memory gets. This evening I could not remember if I had my meds with my dinner, I hit the call button and asked Cat if she had brought them already and she said she had. I do remember us discussing some issues regarding a couple of them but I cannot remember taking them. Cat says it is on the chart so I guess maybe I took them. And before anyone says anything, I will point out that none of the drugs involved are any of the fun ones so that’s not the reason. And for that matter, none of my meds excluding my sleeping pill are in the fun category any way.
I had asked the Crown Prince to move Clarabelle out of the carport into another space to provide room for a friend’s daughter to park in while she’s in class at Capilano University. He called me back and told me she wouldn’t start. I found this puzzling because Pam had emailed last week to tell me that Dennis had been starting her up weekly and she was purring like a kitten. I called Pam and she said she’d get Dennis to double check and sure enough she wouldn’t turn over. He would have tried jumpstarting but he couldn’t find the battery. This is not a surprise because it’s hidden under the floor board on the passenger side. Dennis will try again tomorrow. I hope she’s okay.
While doing my leg exercises tonight, I realized that I could still see the tan lines caused by my flip flops. God has a sick sense of humour.
With compliments of Edna and her co-conspirators I enjoyed another Cookie by George and my orange and with the aid of my little blue pill, I drifted off to la la land.
To be continued...

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