On My Heart (A Series)… Starting Recovery

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It is my third full day home. It has been a good day.

Nights are still hard. I still have nightmares. The dreams are vivid and violent and full of every awful thing. They are like a data dump of horror. I hope they go away soon.

The pain medicine wears off like clockwork at 2:30 a.m., about a half hour before I am supposed to have another one. I reduced my pain medication to half starting yesterday, with a full dose at bedtime just for the sleep. It is not the pain that wakes me, necessarily, just the wearing off of the narcotic.

I was able to sleep a bit on my side last night; it felt wonderful. Thirst and sun through the window is generally what gets me up now. We have a routine. I weigh myself first. I am down 4 pounds since arriving home which means I am not retaining fluid like I was in the hospital. I take my temperature. Then check my blood pressure and heart rate. These last numbers will determine if I take one of my drugs or skip it.

Today is the last day I take steroids, so all future rages will be organically mine. I took only half a pain pill with my morning medicine and that was ten hours ago. Drifting through my day in a haze of narcotics makes no sense to me, so I won’t if I can stand it. Apparently, I can.

My nephew came for a visit and we interviewed a new pet sitter for our trip to Houston in a couple of weeks.

It was such a beautiful day outside, so Charles accompanied me to the chicken pen to visit the flock. They are all doing well. He is taking great care of them. Then we walked up toward the frontage of our property. I had to stop and take a couple of breaks but I thought it was not any worse than it was pre-surgery so that was good.

The wild white asters and the golden rods, both end of season flowers, are blooming along the frontage. I will have to give the nod to mow the frontage in about a month once those flowers have all dried up. But not yet, they still have creatures to feed until frost.

We picked a few persimmons. They weren’t quite ripe and the webworms have decided they never will be. I picked some tomatoes and ate them right there where I stood. “The best flavor, ever,” I said. Charles, a non-tomato eater, said I had low standards. Fair enough, but they are my standards.

I sat on the front porch for a few hours and watched Charles working with the new lawn mower attachment so he can collect stickers – they are so bad this year. I enjoy watching him pay careful attention to things he knows I do not want mowed. He even remembered the two lilacs I planted by the fence.

I just finished my final essay for my American History course, which is due tonight. By my calculations, I need only to make a 15 on the essay to receive an A in the class. It is hard for me to work that way, but I was able to complete the essay, proof if and submit without too much worry.

There are still reminders of the trauma that happened two weeks ago tomorrow. I still cannot bend over and pick things up from the floor without extreme pain. Luckily, I have monkey feet. If something needs picked up I can lift it up to my hands from my toes. You should see it. It is quite amazing. Coughing hurts, but the reduction of fluid means less coughing. My appetite is zero, because I still feel like I am wearing a tight corset. But the corset loosens every day, and Charles feeds me anyway. And the nightmares.

But the wild white asters are blooming and that makes me happy.