How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 41

Episode 41 – December 10 – Today would have been Lorraine’s 57^th birthday. I miss that beautiful woman every day.

This is also a day to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival on this earth of two other very special young ladies. The first, Carol, is a very pretty woman with an absolutely beautiful smile who I have known since grade 8. So that would mean I have known her for a little over 13 years. Hey, little is a relative term! If we were sea turtles we’d still be considered adolescents! And then there is Leslie who is many, many years younger than me. You made have read a lot of witty exchanges between Leslie and I on Facebook. Sadly she always seems to get the better of me in these battles. Leslie is probably one of the few people that I have run across in my life time that has come close to intimidating me both with her intelligence and sense of humour. If you ask her n***ly she may tell you about the infamous email surrender I was forced to send her.

I’m not the only one of the Donnelly clan doing time in healthcare facilities this week so my thoughts are elsewhere today. I hope my Mom is getting better after her surgery. I love you, Ma!

My nurse for today was Katrina, I had her a few weeks ago for half day during Episode 27. She’s already a huge improvement over Maggie. Katrina checked my blood sugar and it was at a low of 4.4 so she advised me to have a good breakfast. My next question was obvious. Where could I get one of those?

I may almost be getting immune to the dripping tap. I said almost! It’s like the nurses’ call bell, it is ringing constantly in the hall that I almost have it blocked until someone mentions it or I need to call the nurse. I said almost!

For almost a full day, I was the oldest on the ward only by a couple of years but that has quickly changed. Both Lisa and Cheryl went home this morning. Cheryl had a major turnaround and was feeling 100% better today so she was given the green light. Within an hour of Cheryl leaving, an elderly Salvadorian woman was moved into her spot and around 2 they brought in a young fellow, Norberto, a post-op knee fracture from a skiing accident. Lion’s Gate Hospital is a leader in orthopaedics when skiing and boarding are involved being that its catchment area covers all three local mountains plus the Whistler/Blackcomb resort area.

I have figured out that Barbara in the next bed is a caffeine addict. She has been trying to get someone to bring her coffee since she woke up this morning.

Jenny and Jennifer came by for my physio treatments and it was a good news and bad news situation. Dr. McConkey has now allowed me to do some active resistance exercise which means that I am now allowed to lift my legs on my own when the braces are locked in at 0° flexion and can do a number of other leg exercises when the physio is there along with the passive motion done by the physio students. The bad news is that he has it on file to start weight bearing on the 21^st. I think this is an error because we talked about starting weight bearing next Monday. If you look at a calendar the 21^st is a Friday so I likely wouldn’t receive any further physio until the 27^th. I’ll have to get it clarified through Dr. Haaf.

The good thing about last night is that Rob, the former Royal Navy member was my nurse and Esther was also working in my ward.

With that comfort in my mind I settled down and enjoyed a mandarin orange while watching a few mindless sitcoms waiting for my little blue buddy to do his magic.

To be continued...