This Is A Long One

I suppose I should start off this blog with a short update on my well being. With the exception of Monday morning, I have been doing remarkably well outside of the hospital. I am certainly in a lot of pain, even more so than usual, but I am determined to get some exercise both to ready myself for the transplant and to help my osteoporosis. This has kept me distracted from the pain and, although it means an extra dose of narcotics midday, I am happy for the accomplishment and sense of living it gives me.

Today I was very sore and tired, but I forced myself to do a few things. I must admit that when my Gramma called and asked if she could accompany me on a walk around the block I almost turned her down saying I needed to rest more today. However, my curiosity in the neighborhood gardens and the beautiful weather got the best of me and I accepted. You see, yesterday evening I was walking around our yard looking for some lingering flowers of summer. I found some, but I was still rather depressed by the lack of variety. I took a few clippings here and there, even a bit of my mother's blooming lavender (ssssh, don't tell) and made myself a rather pathetic little vase. I've been inside so much that I feel I've missed most of the beauties of summer.

My how I was satisfied today! Between our house and my Gramma's live our good family friends the Aikens (their daughter Becky and I were best friends in school). I was walking past their house on my way to Gramma's and saw Kathy stepping out the door. I invited her on our short walk and while she got her shoes I was able to admire her own little plants in the front yard. Then my Gramma had even more beauties, including a butterfly bush filled with butterflies. On our walk we even encountered a tree which had one branch that had turned to a fiery red. Many of the leaves had dropped on the ground and I picked a favorite to press between the pages of a book.

Now I will share a video I took of Annabel:


On to other things. There is much more to tell about my hospital stay in Omaha than my test results and how mean the doctors are to me (don't you notice that when a person is overweight their doctor treats the situation delicately but when they're underweight they feel they can lecture and bully them endlessly?). I don't know if I'll be able to tell it all, but I'll try and pull out some highlights from my memory and write them down. Let see...

My absolute favorite places to go were these: the chapel and the garden. I'd say I liked the chapel more than the garden, though, because the garden had a pond devoid of fish. If you're going to have a pond you need to have fish. It should be the law. Every time I looked in that pond I felt disappointed. The hospital has a great many beautiful gardens and the garden I frequented was on a rooftop, which tended to be chilly, but sunny.

The chapel was difficult the first time I visited. I went in through the side door which was very heavy and had a large piece of woodwork in the ground separating it from the hallway. This was very difficult to get an IV pole over, especially when you're trying to hold open a very heavy door. I later saw that the front doors to the chapel were automatic...

It's a very small chapel, but beautiful. That first time I was there the candle was lit to let us know the Eucharist was present. Unfortunately, it was locked up somewhere otherwise I would have had tasties. I did, however, find the holy water right away and anointed myself the best way I knew how: I painted a cross on my forehead. Next I found a plastic rosary in a sweet little bowl. It said the rosary was for chapel use only. It's too bad. Aren't Catholics always giving out plastic rosaries? I would have loved to have had it. Then I found a bunch of literature that bored me so I looked at the prayer list instead. I saw my name on there and remarked about it to my mother who said something to the effect of, "Yeah, duh, that's because I put it there." So I put down Rayne's name. Then I sat down to rest for awhile and read out loud from Revelation about the beasts because it made mom and I think of Velvet, my cat. Before we left I played "This little piggy" with the toes of a statue of Jesus healing the paralytic let down through the roof.

The second time I went was with my dad who is actually Catholic. I again anointed myself with the holy water and he informed me I was doing it all wrong. Then I remembered that making the cross on your forehead was what you did with the ashes on ash Wednesday. Oops. And someone had taken the rosary! How dare they!

I had two roommates while I was in the hospital. Constance came in at 3 AM my first night there. She was 89 years old and suffering from a bowel obstruction. I was kept awake while they asked her all their questions to admit her. The poor woman could barely think through the morphine but was still in so much pain I wanted to shout at them to get her something. Of course they couldn't until the doctor ordered it. I myself had had to wait three hours for pain medication when I'd gotten to the hospital. Thankfully, an hour or so later, they delivered the goods.

Constance was a sweet old lady, though I often felt frustrated listening to her conversations. She didn't understand things very quickly and had trouble hearing. Still, for an 89-year-old she did remarkably well. I painted her a picture of an orange day lily, but it got lost (so did some of my other paintings. Perhaps there was a botanical watercolor thief on the loose...). Her granddaughter and her daughter, Lily would would come to visit. Lily was just learning to talk and I would often lure her over to my side of the room with my abundance of balloons, stuffed animals and books. This gave Constance time to talk with her granddaughter for which she was very grateful for and thanked me for many times.

One time the phone rang in our room and I picked it up. It was Constance's granddaughter. The ring had woken Constance from her sleep and she picked up the phone when I told her her granddaughter was on the line. She had the hardest time getting her head on straight to talk because she had been sleeping so deeply and having morphine dreams. When she hung up she started telling me about it through the curtain the separated our beds.

"I can understand that," I said, "When I'm on all these drugs I often dream that I've done something and wake up thinking I've already done it. Or vice versa. It makes things so confusing."

"Yes!" she agreed.

When she talked to her doctor later she put her foot down on the morphine issue. She didn't like feeling confused and wanted a different drug. They were able to switch things around for her so she wouldn't have to have to much morphine and I heard her telling her granddaughter later, "I talked to Becca about it and she gave me the courage to bring it up with the doctor."

After I'd been in the hospital for about 5 days Constance was transferred to another ward. She wasn't a transplant patient and had only been placed in the transplant wing because of overflow. The change was very upsetting for her, but she was firm with the nurses and said, "I have to say goodbye to my roommate first." Little, tiny Constance with half her teeth missing and wearing her old floral dressing gown peeked around the corner of the curtain and said her goodbye.

Thirty minutes later I had a new roommate. Alicia was her name. She was soft spoken, in her 50s and accompanied by her mother and sister. She had just had abdominal surgery or some sort. Alicia was another nice, quiet roommate. We didn't talk often, though I think she talked more to my mom. I think we could have had some nice conversations if we both hadn't been feeling so crappy. Maybe I could have gotten to know her better if I had been there longer, but two days or so after Alicia became my roommate, I was discharged from the hospital. I didn't say goodbye-she was sleeping.

I'd better leave it at that for now. This is one long blog entry already.