We visited Durham, North Carolina, recently and ….well, I
have started this blog a hundred times now and can’t get around not mentioning
that I was in Durham to have surgery at Duke University. It’s all over now and I am doing fine with
only lifting restrictions for the next 3 months—not a good situation with a new
grandbaby on the way—and a few minor irritations—allergy to the germicide they
use during surgery and irritation from the breathing tube. But I’m just glad it’s all over.
I had to explain so that I could tell the funny story of
what happened just before they took me in for surgery. I had been introduced to so many interns and
doctors and nurses it was just a whirl of introductions. At one point, two interns came in and somehow
Monty Python came up with the scene about the hospital and the “machine that
goes bing!” Well, we laughed about that
and then they left. And here’s where I
thought maybe they were pulling a prank on me.
Not 5 minutes later, a gentlemen approached down the hallway and I see
him coming and I swear he looks just like a certain German dictator from the
40s. Anyway, I don’t have time to say
anything to Ray because the person approaches the table at the end of my
stretcher and puts down some papers and introduces himself very blandly. Even up close, he looks even MORE like the
dictator, whose name I don’t even like to type.
So he is the nurse, he says, who will be in the operating
room with me & that he was going to review some facts from the paperwork
with me. I was not on any medication
yet, I assure you, even though I had asked for some anti-anxiety stuff because
it feels so good to relax with that stuff when you’re really worried. But I hadn’t gotten it yet because the
surgeon had to come in first. So this
guy, after he introduced himself, started flipping through the papers he had in
his hands and every time he got to a page, he looked at it & scrunched up
his eyes and held it away from him then back to him and then gave a satisfied
expression then on to the next page. I
swear, he did this with every one of the 10 pages that he had. NEVER saying a word to me or Ray! He finished his perusal of the pages then
looked up at me with his distinctive tiny mustache and smiled ever so slightly
then said okay under his breath and nodded at us and walked away.
He never asked me anything!
It was all I could do not to burst out laughing at his routine. I didn’t dare look over at Ray for fear I
would! I held it in until he was out of
earshot. I was thinking that maybe the nurses
had decided to give me a laugh instead of the good pain shot.
It was the last I ever saw of the little man. He may have been in the operating room, maybe
not. But it was a relaxing few minutes
right before they took me in for surgery.
And then there was another relaxing “aha” moment after surgery. The regular recovery room was full when I was
done so they took me to the pediatric recovery room and put me into a cubicle
that had a very interesting cubicle letter that was a sign to me that all would
be okay. You have no idea how meaningful
it was to me. The whole trip to Europe
had been about this particular quest and about getting my mind off this upcoming
surgery, and to come out of anesthesia and look up and see that particular
letter written in that particular way—what are the odds. Nobody’s gonna understand what I’m talking
about because I’m being so cryptic, but just know that I KNOW how significant
it was--especially because on the OTHER side of the sign, the "M" was written in the regular Times New Roman script as usual.
Later that night on TV, I heard that they were doing the
movies “War Horse” and “Ghost”-- ON STAGE!
Just imagining this brought on laughter again—this time I had been on
meds but they had worn off. How would
they pull this off? Ghost, maybe, but
War Horse? On the drive home the next
day, I saw a sign for Lizard Lick Road that got me to wondering how street
names get created. Hmmmm? I think there was a Lizard Lick dress shop in
Peachtree City at one time. Just curious.
So surgery was last Monday and now I have had an amazing
week of not much pain and doing very well.
I have to give a shout out to Duke.
Amazing place, amazing care. I
have had 3 phone calls since arriving home—one from my doctor’s office, one
from the recovery room, and one from my very own doctor! He called me HIMSELF to see how I was doing
and to tell me that he thought I was going to do very well and feel much better
than before. Unheard of in my book.
So I guess Ray was jealous of the attention I was getting or
wanted to get his costume going for Halloween, but anyway, yesterday morning,
Ray was working on the addition and he comes in with his elbow crooked up over
his forehead and saying, “Mayday, mayday!”
Oh dear. Turns out while he was
removing a board from his scaffolding using his power drill, the board popped
out and hit the drill which hit his forehead putting two long gashes in
it. It looked borderline on whether it
needed stitches, so off we go to Urgent Care where the doctor put in 7 stitches
to close the gashes—one about 1 inch long, the other two inches. So now he is more than ready to be
Frankenstein for Halloween.
I was so nervous about all this until I got him there. When the doctor asked what happened and
turned to me, I told him and said that I thought it was borderline as to
whether stitches were needed, whereupon he asked me if I was a nurse and I said
no but my sister is. What a duffus I am! How did that apply?!? What was I thinking? I’m gonna chalk it up to nervousness, but my
sister got a kick out of the story.
I took a photo of his injuries before the stitches, but looking at it right now, it freaked me out so I'm not gonna post it. Don't want to do the same to you.
And just in time for Thanksgiving traditions, we’ve had two
large turkeys visiting our front yard lately.
They seem to be eating seeds or something from the lawn, but it is so
cool to look out and see these huge birds walking about. Fall has certainly come to the mountains—the trees
are showing themselves in gorgeous shades of red and orange and golden brown,
and there is a crispness in the morning air.
I love Fall—my favorite season of all.
Turkeys visiting the front yard
Letter of significance on my recovery room cubicle
