Last night was an up and down night, up and down every hour to hour and a half. I slept well in between. Around 5:00 am, the constipation seemed to have resolved itself. All the meds were out of my system and my GI tract calmed down. After spending Saturday and early Sunday sorting out my digestive system, morning was welcome.
I had a breakfast of Boost and Cheerios with blueberries and vanilla soymilk. While I ate, Ann reviewed the post-op instructions on cleaning the tube incision. I finished breakfast and lay down on the couch. Ann removed the dressing and cleaned the incision site with a Q-tip. It didn’t hurt, but as Ann circled the site, she hit something that triggered a stomach muscle to spasm. That wasn’t fun but was pretty funny. The incision site is supposed to be left open to the air, so I’m going shirtless. Good thing the sun is out and temperature is 83F.
Dan arrived a little after noon and boosted my spirits just by being here. We sat around talking and watching “Scrubs” on TV.
I started getting hungry (good sign) and Ann made me scrambled Egg Beaters. Dan made himself a sandwich. My parents called and asked about visiting. They arrived soon after to the delight of the doggies, and the humans. We watched the Red Sox – Orioles baseball game as we talked. Mom & Dad admired my tube. I currently have two appliances in place (port is the other) and lead the family in that category. My parents left and Ann & Dan & I watched via DVR episodes of “Modern Family” and “Big Bang Theory.” I was hungry, again, and had a bowl of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable soup. When we were kids, I think there were more letters in the soup. Oh well.
As bad as I felt last night, today I feel good. In a while, I’ll take a shower, first shower since the surgery. I have to be clean for all of Monday’s poking and prodding. We have a busy schedule: blood draw, radiation treatment, appointment with the radiation oncologist, appointment with the oncologist/team leader, chemotherapy, and the nutritionist. The nutritionist will teach us how to flush the tube and feed formula. I can eat and talk at the same time!
Thanks everyone for your support and comfort. I look at my windowsills covered with cards and my Alien mailbox full, and feel you all here with me.
Love…
Richard
What? Fewer letters in the alphabet soup? Okay, this won’t do? Which letters didn’t make the cut? How will children learn to spell with fewer letters?
ReplyDeleteIsn’t it amazing how some things bring us close to other people so quickly? It’s like that for touring musicians. We’re out there on our own in your town, not knowing anybody, just hoping to meet some kind people who are open enough to take in what we do. Sometimes, we find very generous people who not only take in our work and reflect it back to us so that we can understand it better, but who also take us into their homes and into their lives and care for us and make us almost part of their families … like you, Ann, Dan and Adam did for me all those years ago. I will always appreciate that so much. But, I also appreciate those people who very briefly come up to me after a show and talk to me and wish me well and help me feel like this journey of making music is a rich one. I doubt that those people will ever know the importance of what they give me and how close I feel to them in those moments. I feel that sort of closeness to the people in the infusion room and to the people who have appointments with Little Bang at times close to yours. I feel so grateful to them for their lightheartedness and for their attempts, in the midst of their own challenges, to make the people around them feel better, reassured and comforted. I will miss them when this blog has served its purpose and is done. Through you, they have really gotten to me.
It seems like Mondays are very demanding days. I hope you get lots of very good sleep tonight so that you’ll be all ready to take on Little Bang and the various humans. This week will see you halfway through this part of your treatment. Keep moving on and know that I am cheering and that I am so very impressed with how elegantly you are running this marathon.
I am sorry you had to have that put in... but in the long run it will be for the best and will be out before you know it...
ReplyDeleteHugs from FL..