Jean is kinda looking at me
funny in this wheelchair. I had
hoped she was pondering some kinky extra curricular physical therapy, alas ...
no.
More than a week of hospital
novelty has exhausted my Attention Deficient Disorder requirements. I need a change. To get out, I have to pass tests from
the various medical teams involved.
The neurology guys have proclaimed my head very hard and predict I will
be at 90% within 90 days, if I don't drink or do drugs. The medicine team has given me a huge
jar of narcotics - enough to keep me out for those 90 days. The ortho team wants me to keep still
and knit my bones while the physical therapy advice is to get up and move to
avoid blood clots. But it is the
Occupational Therapy folks that hold my fate. Can I get in and out of bed, not fall off my walker and step
up just one step? Not
multiple-choice. Pass/fail.
After one fail/re-test, and a
weekend of practice, I pass. Then
comes the deal breaker - can I give myself an injection each morning? Oh no - no way! Stab, stick, sew up anyone else OK, but
even the Army couldn't get me to poke a needle into my own, pink, tender hide.
To my rescue, again, comes
Jean. Not only will she do the
shots, but pour out the pills and piss-pots, sweep up scab chips and push me to
any doctor's offices. I am home,
eating her great cooking, have most of a multi-pillow bed - and get my beers
delivered hospital style.
This is huge. Not only because I can go home, but
because she was not cut from starched nurse’s cloth. As much practice as I have given her in our 35 years, she is
not a natural nanny. I’m not even
sure, as a child, she had any dolls that lived.
And that funny look has come
more often. She holds my chin with
a cocked head and narrowed eyes.
Within the counter full of medical stuff I have found a box of Just For
Men hair dye, and some magazine cutouts of various hunks with beards. Is that Bruce Willis?
I can't run. I can't hide - or even walk. I am at her mercy. She is going to wake up some morning
soon, feeling like a new man. I will wake up looking like one. Please, no ear stud - I hate needles.
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