I left you yesterday with draining power on my ipad and you wondering about what my lunch was like. Well you will have to continue to wonder what it looked like, as there is minimal picture taking allowed in the hospital.
I picked out what I thought was a light lunch, mushroom bisque and a grilled cheese panini with tomatoes. Well dietary would have none of that. Patients are only allowed clear foods for their first meal. Even ones like myself who had an amazing recovery. My nurse tried to intervene, but dietary said “No, first meal must be clear. If you want, you can put the order in and in 30 minutes we will deliver the soup and grilled cheese”. “Fine” we said. The consommé arrived shortly, and I dug or rather spooned in. I only finished half as I was expecting the other soup and sandwich shortly.
Now I shall digress, as my lunch digressed also. I am what my family affectionately calls a person in the state of being nauseous , or a barfer, or a thrower upper. After anesthesia years ago, and my terribly uncomfortable reaction, I vowed never to willingly go under for a voluntary surgery. This meant no plastic surgery. No facelifts, no nip and tuck.
Besides the barfing I was worried about being like the Dutchess of Windsor and also suffering from dementia due to too many face lifts. She might have looked good, but what kind of audience can you have if you are prone in bed, and non compost mentis? Well, with this new drug Emend, which costs a whopping $21 after my co-pay and $117 without insurance, your barfing is over! You take it three hours before surgery and you feel great afterward. Well, especially if you are out for only 45 minutes. I did feel pretty barfy after getting my pancreatic cyst, pancreatic tail and spleen out in 2015. So maybe I won’t get that plastic surgery after all.
The physical therapist stopped by to give me an assessment, and to see if I could handle stairs. We have two stairs to get into the house and the bedrooms are on the second floor, so it was important to see if I could handle this. We sure didn’t want me to go to rehab! Rest assured, I passed with flying colors. I demonstrated how I could walk unaided, and if I felt weak, I was to grab onto the handrail along the wall. Now this really wouldn’t help me at our house, as we don’t have hand rails all over the house. But I wanted the therapist to be impressed that not only could I walk unaided, but that I showed superior reasoning ability! We hit the stairs, and she was even more impressed as I was taking the stairs with an alternating gait, not step up, join step, step up. She was really not used to have a patient like me. I told her, as I told all the nurses, “My goal is to always be the healthiest sick person here. Your job is hard enough as it is to see really sick patients. I try to be an easy patient for you”
PT over and after 90 minutes of waiting for lunch, we called dietary again. They could find no order for grilled cheese panini with tomatoes and an order of soup. We ordered again, and hoped that it would show up. Finally after 3 hours the soup and sandwich showed up. The soup was delicious, but the sandwich was pretty yucky. I was expecting an American Cheese sandwich with tomatoes in it that I could pull off. Instead there was some kind of funky cheese with pesto and roasted tomatoes. Not what I expected at all.
It was around 6:00 so I sent Steve off to go to dinner at Mr. Chow and then to the apartment. He related to me that his dinner was overpriced and not very good. So we both struck out with bad meals for the day.
After Steve left, I found out how the television worked, watched some news, and then read a bit. I also excitedly followed my Twitter feed and the Eric Schneiderman story. It almost sounded like some of the books that I read, although the activity in the books is strictly consensual. It seems in this case Mr. Schneiderman is a bad bad man.
I ordered salmon for dinner with a cauliflower soufflé. Here is a picture. 
The soufflé looked pretty, but it was so salty. I was surprised that it was that salty. Most hospital food is low sodium. How this recipe got approved I have no idea. 
For dessert I had a KozyShack rice pudding. It was a toss up between that and the tapioca pudding. Steve hates both, so I rarely get them at home. It needed whip cream, which there was an abundance of at my girlfriend’s apartment.
At around 9:30 my roommate’s husband stopped in to see his wife. He thought the room was too hot for his wife and wanted the air set to 65. I kept my mouth shut and prayed that I would be given blankets if they dropped the temperature that much. He left after about an hour.
I took another walk at about 11 before I went to bed. I buzzed around that floor so fast one of the nurses came over to me when I was back in my room and asked me if I was okay. I think they thought I was looking for an escape route. How I was going to escape in my hospital gown and slip free hospital socks I can’t imagine.
At about 12 I went to sleep, my poor roommate whimpered two minutes after the nurses left every time they checked on her. I prayed that she would not hurt. It was very sad.
My vitals were checked again at 2 and then I was awoken at 5:55 by Dr. Fancy Dresser von HotStuff to check my dressing. Once again I had my contacts out, and couldn’t see him clearly. He did appear to have a nice suit on. Steve might be a wee bit jealous as he has told me that “Yes, he wore a nice suit, but he really wasn’t that good looking”. Years ago when Steve and I were first married there was a guy at the gym that I thought was a bit dreamy looking, and had great hair. Steve used one of his favorite expressions of a co-worker at Central Hudson “I’ve seen a better head on a cabbage!” I have tried to look the Doctor up on the internet to see him in focus. My snooping skills have failed me.
My dressing was changed and I was told that I would be to be released this morning. Dr. Boland came around 7 and shook my hand goodbye. I didn’t even get to eat my ordered breakfast of apple cinnamon crepes as that arrived at 8:10 and Steve was on his way with the van to pick me up.
We had smooth sailing home, and we got home at 10:15. My restrictions are no gym, no driving and no lifting until I see Dr. Boland in two weeks.
I consider this another Excellent Adventure!
Dinner looked surprisingly better than most hospital food. Happy that your ordeal is over. As for those puddings…
It looked better than it tasted! I do pudding, I was surprised that it wasn’t full of chemicals. Although “natural flavor’s is a catch all for who knows what!
I’m glad all went well for you Linda and you are on your way to recovery !
My miraculous healing aura is hard at work!
Delighted it all went so well.
Thanks, so am I!
Glad you lost the Myxoma but not your sense of humor! Happy you are on the road to recovery.
Yes, when my sense of humor goes, it will be a sad day indeed!