Day Three

Day Three:


I am woefully behind in reporting my progress. Before I forget too much about the days in the hospital I should attempt to finish that part of the story immediately. On Wednesday morning I was again awakened by a nurse taking my blood pressure and temperature, at three o’clock in the morning. I must have missed the fine print but I thought that a patient was suppose to be resting and recuperating but alas that is not so. She did a wonderful job of only waking me to the point that I asked her what time it was and if all of my vitals were still good. She reassured me that I was doing fine and to go back to sleep.

Around six o’clock breakfast appeared but this time instead of agreeing to sit in the chair for three hours waiting for physical therapy I told them I preferred to just sit on the side of the bed until PT arrived. To my surprise they said, “OK” and that was the end of that. John, my PT arrived around nine and again we proceeded to do the walk. This time however we walked down the hall. I suggested to John that we could just keep going and within two or three hours I would be at the front door of the hospital. It was then that John told me that I had progressed far beyond the expectations of his department and that he was clearing me for discharge today. I wanted to give him a bear hug but knew that if I let go of the walker I was so desperately hanging on to, I might ruin all chances of my discharge on top of embarrassing John.

Around twelve o’clock a doctor appeared to remove the epidural that I had been connected to since Monday morning. Of course he saw my NCAA bracket sheet first so we spent the next fifteen minutes talking basketball. I hope that he did not take my advice, because after Kansas lost on Friday my sheet was pretty much shot to hell. Remember I told you that there would be more to the story of the epidural, therefore if any of you ever saw the movie “The Forty Year Old Virgin” you may have a clue as to what happens next. The doctor made some comment that the next second or two may hurt just a bit but it was not life threatening. It was at this moment that he ripped a piece of tape from by back that ran from just below my neckline to somewhere just below my waist line. This tape was holding on the tube which had been feeding me pain killers for the past two and a half days. Now for those of you who live in southern Texas I am sure on Wednesday morning around noon who heard the faint sound of words which I dare not repeat now, being uttered with such proclamation that even Dave Crockett would have sit up in his grave. With one quick and deliberate tug the tape was removed along with every particle of skin and hair off of my back. (jxd?aop!lpuoep*?!!!!)

After this the rest of the afternoon went without much fanfare. I was happy that two friends dropped by to see me, officials who broke up the boredom before I was discharged around seven pm. Marcia had not anticipated this early release but I had been pushing for it all day. I was ahead of all expectations for a patient with bilateral knee surgery and all of my vital signs were good, so why not. She was such a trooper getting everything together in such a short period of time so around 7:30 PM I was wheeled out the front door and headed for home. However there was one small problem we did not anticipate.

When John and I had practiced how to get up and down steps early Wednesday morning our practice step was only four inches high. When I got home and slowly moved to the three “GIANT” steps into the house (approximately eight inches in height each) it became apparent very quickly that either I was going to spend my first night at home in the garage or a miracle was going to happen. I told Marcia to call the largest neighbor we had and tell them we had an emergency. I only had at best two or three minutes before I had to sit down again and time was running out. Thank goodness a giant of a young man appeared, 6 feet 4 inches weighting around 255. Thank goodness he had the strength to lift me up three steps (dead lift) at which point I slowly made my way to the fold out couch and fell upon it and did not move for the next hour, literally.