It's quarter past nine a.m. on Monday and I'm in my parents' cold office hooked up to my feeding machine and listening to a David Cross interview from what I assume is 2004 because it deals largely with the RNC and George W. Bush. To get off on a bit of an off-topic tangent for a second I will say that while I absolutely don't miss the years we suffered under the Bush regime I must say that people have short memories in this country because these days the right-wing pundits are all a flutter with their "Obama is a communist, socialist, Muslim, America-hating Nazi who wants to kill us all and bleed us dry economically and spritually. Oh, and there's still a war on Christmas." and they love it. I can tell that Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly sit in their offices counting their vast mile-high stacks of money, twiddling their fingers and just think "Fuck YES! FINALLY! The soul-sucking liberals had us over a barrel for eight years but now it's OUR TURN, MOTHERFUCKER!" Now, don't get me wrong, I'm an equal-opportunity critic of the current and former administrations but every complaint these people have about Obama being fiscally irresponsible and not getting his shit together after five years in office can't hold a candle to the truly evil and awful things that went on under Bush that our children's children's children will feel the repercussions of.
Ok, the soap box is put away now. Just felt I had to get some of that out.
I've got my first (well, technically second) post-hospital doctor's appointment this afternoon with my surgeon, Dr. Auty. In hindsight I must say that despite the fantastic jobs that both Dr. Marcello and Dr. Pompiselli at Lahey did Dr. Auty is my favorite surgeon thus far. Not quite sure what it is but she puts me more at ease than any other doctor I've had, especially one that's been wrist-deep inside my abdomen. It could be that I just feel more comfortable at W-D than I do at Lahey too. Hmm.
I'm not exactly sure what we're supposed to be doing today being so close to my discharge but I do know that I have a confession to make to her. Post-surgery we discovered that my stomach was still leaking and we were resting it for a bit so it would close itself up (some organs heal themselves, kids) so the plan was to be NPO (again, "nothing by mouth") for at least two weeks while the feeding tube did its magic. Well, being a professional patient I get a little antsy and impatient because a. that's my nature and b. at this point I can read my body pretty well. Now, I'm not supposed to be fully NPO; I've been given the OK to chew ice chips and have sips of water to keep my mouth from getting too dry and such. But give some people an inch and they'll see how far they can jog. See, I reasoned that I should experiment to see what I can handle and try to advance my recovery as best as possible because let's face it, having a tube shoved up and down your nose stinks and the sooner I get it out the better. It works like this:
If my stomach is still leaking then about a half hour after I ingest anything more substantial than water or clear liquids it'll show up in my JP drain because my JP is placed at the head of the leaks in what's left of my pancreas and my stomach. In the hospital we used the "Jell-O Test" (I would eat some bright-colored Jell-O and wait. If my stomach was leaking then my JP drain would be full of that color. Simple.) This applies to any food that my stomach needs to process SO I took it upon myself to try little things while here to see if I was healed up.
Pros: I discover my stomach is healed and I can get this damn tube out and move on with my life.
Cons: My stomach is still leaking and I need to chill and stay NPO for a bit longer.
To me it's a no-brainer so I've had little bits of things like chicken soup, Gatorade, slice of deli turkey, scrambled eggs...and guess what? Nothing's headed into my JP. Sure, there's a little bit (and by little bit I mean MAYBE 10ml in 48 hours) there but that's the normal fluid that's been in there all along. If my stomach was leaking that thing would be full of processed food bits. Yes, I feel guilty about going against Dr. Auty's wishes and advancing my process faster than she wanted but the faster I get back to eating for real the faster I get back to real life. I'm sure she'll understand.
After my appointment we're stopping by my place to pick up a few things and back to the house here in the middle of nowhere. I miss my Dover. I miss my restaurant. I miss my friends.
"I will fuck this up. I fucking know it."
Before it gets too far along in the day I'm going to call Angel to see if he wants to hook up today. I need to return some of his cookbooks and FINALLY give he and Hannah their Christmas presents. Through purely cosmic means we lost touch over the past few months (my phone got shut off, lost my internet, got sick, etc.) but we're mending those fences now. Those two are as much my family as my blood and it breaks my heart that at times we let ourselves grow apart. Funny story: Angel is listed as one of my emergency contacts and when I was getting intake at endocrinology done they asked about it and when I said yes, he is an emergency contact they said that he's listed as my brother. I kind of laughed a little bit and said well, that's kind of true, actually. Silly medical records.
"Isn't it amazing in this world that anyone can love anyone at all?"
That's one thing that I'll never get used to about being in the hospital for extended periods. For me time stops and I forget that the world moves on for everyone else. It's kind of a strange concept and if you've ever spent a good amount of time in that kind of situation you may be able to relate. I would say it's kind of like going on extended vacation but I wouldn't exactly compare being in the hospital to being on vacation. Like when I visited the restaurant and said hello to some of my people, it was weird seeing things arranged differently and hearing certain things about certain people. That's just something I'll have to wrap my head around and process in my own time. People move on even when you're locked in somewhere else.
"I'm getting good at saying goodbye."
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