It's Hip to Be Square (Huey Lewis)
On Your Feet (Gloria Estefan)
25.04.2024 - 25.04.2024 78 °F
3:30
Having been transferred by Jessica and a helper from the “stretcher” used to transport her from the surgery center to her hospital room to her now “permanent” hospital bed, and, after a bit of food, she is dozing. She awakens and asks, “Did you turn the sound off?” She refers to the TV but I had muted that long ago. “OK,” she decides and quickly falls back to sleep.
Her pleasure comes from dozing in and out this afternoon.
Our regular Vero Doc, Melissa Walther, calls to check up on her. She takes very good care of us both.
5:45
The time for resting has ended; Emmanuel is here. His job is to get her, to paraphrase Gloria Estefan, "On Your Feet." (We saw that show two nights ago at Vero’s Riverside Theater) Emmanuel has a lot of work to do. He has to arrange a transfer chair. He has to remove our girl’s TCD devices. He gets her to first flex her right leg and knee and then, more critically, her left. “I’m surprised it so stiff,” she says. “It’s sore.”
“You just had surgery,” he opines. She takes the news as if it was a shock. She was thinking, I’m thinking, that all pain would vanish. That is not the case.
She is surprised that it is so hard to move herself off the right side of the bed. “Wow.”
“Oh, Jeez Louise.” She scootches and slides and is momentarily dizzy sitting up. “I’m so surprised how hard that was,” she says. Emmanuel is not surprised. “It feels like it is all swollen here,” she says.
“It’s post operative swelling,” he says.
He slides the walker in front of her. She grabs the walker rails. She stands. She scores.
She takes three steps and……..throws up. She is so embarrassed; and even angry at herself. I console her. “Baby, you’re the iron lady but you’ve got a bit of rust. Nothing to be surprised about nor to worry over.” Emmanuel supports me on that point.
She recovers. “Let’s walk to the toilet,” Emmanuel says. That motivates her. Holding her IV, Emmanuel escorts her while I stay out of the way. “I’m not putting a lot of weight on my left leg,” she says.
“You can put as much weight on it as you can tolerate,” he says. She wonders if she needs to head into the bathroom backwards. “No.”
“That’s not too bad,” she says. “I think I did that pretty good.”
A point of order here. Neither I nor anyone else to my knowledge has ever witnessed her pee. Like the reverse of children, that function is heard but not seen. Emmanuel and I are expelled from her presence just as has her accumulated urine. While she is doing her business, Emmanuel confers with me about the walk-in shower, the grab bars there, a bench in the shower, a raised toilet, and more. Check, check, check, check. We are prepared.
“I haven’t peed since this morning,” she shares. Neither Emmanuel nor I are surprised or impressed by this news. What’s good is that she has peed now. Back on her feet, she and Emanuel cross the room to return to her special chair.
“I feel like I’m going good,” she says. “But I feel like my left leg is longer than my right leg.”
And, then, the words I’ve awaited. “Look at me Paul. I’m doing pretty good.” She smiles. For someone who was vomiting only four minutes ago, she is in remarkably good spirits. “I’m still at a six,” she says when asked about her pain level.
He puts her through some leg lifts, counting them out as she raises first her right leg and then her left. Emmanuel hovers, counts, arranges things and otherwise fusses over her. She likes being fussed over and her attitude continues to shine. He recommends butt squeezes, pushing the knees down ten times, extending her legs ten times and flexing her ankles ten times.
“Precautions,” he says. “Don’t hyperextend your leg to the side or to the rear.” She asks about sleeping tonight. “Stay on the back but put a pillow under the knees,” he says.
“When I’m all healed up, can I wear low heels?”
“Of course.”
“I could hug you,” she says. A new set of pants in the closet will come into use. She has taught me about flat length pants, low heel length pants and high heel pants, etc. The latter have been retired for some time. Now, they will be put back to work.
“I feel pretty good right now,” she says. “I want some food and I want some ice.” This, after recently vomiting her grapes and finger sandwiches from earlier is another good sign. “I feel like I’m awake,” she says.
Even so, we agree that we are SO GLAD that we decided to spend tonight in the hospital. Going back home to Vero tonight—we were given that option—would have been a major error.
