Lox, Stock and Sand Bars

Surgery recovery is a lot like the battle between land and sea. No one is sure which is winning that one. If you live near a coast, you know about the futile projects to revitalize shrinking beaches only to have some minor current and weather pattern changes turn them back into expansive stretches of sand. Man is no match for sea vs. land and all the doctors and nurses and assistants in a hospital are no match for how an individual patient deals with the rigors of post-op. Just like the weather here, which turned from bright sun and pleasant mid-eighties temperatures to cloudy, raw, low 70’s soup, Renee has turned from pink-cheeked effervescence to a sallow slab.

A restless night filled with nausea and a morning of weakness and lack of appetite are the current conditions. Not surprisingly, there will be no release today. Perhaps Renee tried to push too hard yesterday, pumped up with adrenaline from all the good news. Perhaps the re-introduction of the soft-GI diet caused Renee to overdo it on the meals. Perhaps the salmon on the plate for dinner has caused a psychological setback.

A few years back Renee had a salmon dinner at a local restaurant. That night was her first hospital visit in Louisville. Renee still avoids salmon thinking it somehow triggered the event. It doesn’t matter whether it did or didn’t if you’ve convinced yourself that the culprit is a pink hunk of fish flesh. It also doesn’t matter that you didn’t eat the fish that was on your plate now. There’s just some bad mojo there. Lox gets a pass in this game though. No reason to give up on something that goes so well on a bagel. Don’t put too much thought into trying to figure this stuff out, I’m sure that this and other thought processes without any validity or justification could have a psychiatrist cowering in the corner wondering why they didn’t join the bakers ranks right out of high school. Great, now I’m hungry for a bagel. Quick someone email me one from Lox, Stock and Bagel. Throw in a bialy while you’re at it.

Renee hasn’t taken a walk yet today except to get cleaned up in the washroom.
She is napping at the moment, which is good. Sleep heals. It is not all dispiriting news here. Renee’s been unhooked from all IV’s and has been placed on PO. That means oral medication for those like me not trained in med-speak. The nurses are still expecting her to be released tomorrow.

I’ll need to make arrangements for another night at the hotel just in case of changes later today but I really just think it’s the tide. It’s out right now and we’re just waiting for it to come back in, get this boat off of the sand bar and sail back into the deep bluegrass.