I'm so happy to be home. Erinn had a tough time while I was in the hospital. Our five year old, Kate, caught a stomach virus at school and just as she got better, our three year old, Maggie, caught it. I came home the next day. I thought it best to sequester myself in the basement away from the kids while I healed on the lazy-boy. Brilliant plan. I can also take a break by kneeling on the carpeted floor in the basement. So good to be back in front of my TV and watching what I want on the PVR. Lotsa racing to catch up on and lotsa racing to watch this weekend.
I cannot sit. Doctor's Orders are not to sit for more than 5 minutes at a time. No problem. I can't even sit for 5 seconds. If my ass could take it, my torso couldn't hold me up. I was pretty sure I might be able to flop out at home in the lazy-boy, though. And, yes, I can so long as I'm in the fully reclined position. The next day Erinn made my life easier and got me bendable straws! Small pleasures.
I walked with Erinn to the end of the block and back on Friday afternoon. The next morning I walked all the way around the block and in the afternoon I did two laps. All involve a lie-down afterwards. This morning I quadrupled that distance by walking 1.2 kms to my parents' house. I laid down on their lazy-boy before I walked home. When I got home, back in the basement on the lazy-boy I went and Erinn brought me my lunch. She's so good to me. My parents are about 100 metres from the river so I'm sure in a few days I'll be walking all the way to the river. I'll just have to bring a leather lazy-boy...
The nurse came by this morning and removed my 23 staples from the belly-button on down. That's great. Small progress. What remains below are sutures, a Jackson-Pratt (JP) drain and the colostomy, which is permanent. My pelvic area is still numb from the epidural. That may last another week or two. It feels weird. A nurse will come by every Tuesday and Friday for the next few weeks.
The JP drain is weird. I did a quick search on the internet to see when it originated but I couldn't find anything. I'm guessing the late 1800's because that's how primitive it is. It's a rubber ball with a clear hose on it. The hose goes right inside my front pelvic area and drains the waste fluid from my wound inside my body. When I'm draining less than 30 ml per day, I can remove the drain. That may take another 3 weeks. So far, I'm still draining 100 ml of waste fluid a day. It looks like diluted blood. How do they learn to come up with things like this? "Well, he lived past the surgery for two weeks. I wonder what killed him?"
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| That's me a couple of years ago. I can't imagine bending my legs like that anymore. One of the big carrots for getting home this weekend was to catch up on the motorcycle racing that I missed last weekend and watch more racing. This is a big weekend. Supercross in Seattle, AMA road racing in Atlanta and World Superbike in Assen, Holland. I'll be cheering for Canadian Brett McCormick in World Superbike. Brett, from Saskatoon, put TEAM SHOULDERCHECK rider Alan Burns and myself down one lap quite nicely at the Mosport Nationals a few years ago. Then he went Pro and continued to decimate the field. Good luck on the world stage, Brett!!! |
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