Tuesday, July 14, 2015

* OUR REHAB CENTER *

*Note: I just realized this is my 1,000th post!

I haven't posted anything about the craziness going on here, which began on June 30th when The Ronald had total knee-replacement surgery on his right knee. He came home two days later and has been doing amazingly well ever since.....which is exactly the way I envisioned he would.

Mercy Hospital St. Louis


The hardest part for me has been keeping track of all his medications. I made a chart listing them all, what they were for, and at what times he needed to take them. Some were once a day, others were every 12 hours, others were twice a day...but with meals, etc., etc.

And along with those chores as The Ronald's caretaker, Vern was a bit more "needy" in the early stages of Ron being back home, too. There were strange, new things around the house: a walker, an exercise contraption, a large bandage on daddy's knee, etc.

Things were settling down pretty well when just a week after Ron's surgery, I became aware of some major tooth pain in one of my back molars. Long story short, I had to have oral surgery because it was cracked, couldn't be saved, and wasn't a "typical" tooth-pulling. I came home looking like a chipmunk with a huge bruise. Still today, I have a smaller, multi-colored bruise on my right jaw, but no swelling.

Vern looking at me when I first came home as if he's thinking...
"Who IS that? It can't be Mom!"
 
After he looked at me in the above photo, I kept talking to him and calling him by name,
 and he wouldn't even look back at me!
 (Besides the swollen cheek and huge bruise,
I still had gauze in my mouth and didn't sound like myself, either!)

This was taken on Friday, I think.

So, I've been trying to catch up on "normal" household chores such as laundry (but we have also acquired a bit of a plumbing problem,) so things are piling up....so to speak! (The plumber is supposed to be here later this afternoon.)
 
 
I'd like to leave a final thought from my friend, the brilliant Robert Brault. This is from his book, The Second Collection: Thoughts and Other Writings. It is currently unavailable, but his first book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Round-Up-Usual-Subjects-Everything/dp/1499593783/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436850854&sr=8-1&keywords=robert+brault&pebp=1436850934412&perid=1GBZTDDRX8A0BQ30EHWJ
 

"Some mornings you wake up to the smell of the coffee, and some mornings you wake up to the smell of the halibut from last night's supper." - Robert Brault