I was planning on getting to the hospital around 10:00 this morning since Amanda was to be discharged around 11:00. I got a call around 8:30 from Karen Mercer. She said she had hurt her foot and was going to the emergency room. I found out later that she had bumped into a piece of equipment that was attached to the foot of Amanda’s bed and it fell off and hit her foot. It was bleeding and caused a hematoma, so the people at the hospital made her to go the emergency room and filed a report. I guess they wanted to cover their butts.
So I got up, showered and headed on over, getting to the hospital around 9:30. Amanda was able to go to the bathroom and took a shower after they brought up a shower chair. I did most of the work for her, but she was able to walk back and forth and stand up, so that’s good.
Karen made it back eventually. She left before us to stop by Wal-Mart and pick up some bagels that Amanda wanted. Around 11:30 I went and asked if the nurses knew about when we’d be getting out of there. The one I talked to said we could go whenever we wanted- she just thought Amanda was wanting some nausea to wear off. So I went and got the car and she was wheeled out.
I was talking to a guy while waiting on the elevator. He said it was the first time he’d been warm in a while- he’d been in the maternity ward or something like that- the recovery for that was on the same floor as Amanda’s. We talked a little on the way down. He was a young guy and had just had his first kid. He asked if I’d just had one too, but I told him my wife had just had surgery and maybe we could work on that after she got better. I asked him the name of his son, and he said it was Jason, named after himself, Jay. "Jay, Jr." I said. "JJ." He told me that’s what people were calling him already. I told him I wished him the best and I’d say a prayer for his son.
On the way home Amanda and I stopped by Eckerd, or I think it’s a Rite Aid now. It’s across the street at the intersection of College and Murrayville, really close to our house. I put an order in for Amanda’s prescription of Percocet and they told me it would be 15-20 minutes, so I took Amanda on home before going back and picking it up. We settled her in on the loveseat and let the dogs see her, but I held them back a lot so they wouldn’t jump up on her. After a bit I put them back in the office and stayed in there with them for a little bit. Karen went out to get some of her own meds (she was low on them) and Phil came by to check up on his daughter. Amanda was watching Ellen and started laughing, which hurt her. I told her I liked her new laugh. She asked what I was talking about and I said, "Ow, ow, ow!" That made her laugh some more, which I apologized for.
Phil left and Bonnie stopped by to see if we wanted to go ahead and dump Harvey off on her. I felt bad having him stay there as he tends to be inquisitive and chews things up from time to time, so we thought we’d see how tonight went before imposing on Bonnie like that. I know she said it’s no imposition, but I think Harvey is more of a handful than she knows. She said if we changed our minds though that we could bring him by at any time, be it the next few minutes or 2 am.
Anna stopped by while Bonnie was still here. She brought a shower chair for Amanda to use then hung out for a little while. Karen and I both ate some of the leftovers from the meal Polly made us on Monday then I went out to get some Baked Cheetos for Amanda. Karen wanted some Tropicana but they didn’t have any at the Lowe’s here by the house.
After that we watched Ghost Hunters and started watching Boston Legal. Karen got a call from one of her friends and Michael came by to check on Amanda, visit with his mom and eat Polly’s food. He stuck around for a little while then left. Amanda and I were both pretty tired- I’d been nodding off for a while.
Next we started the ordeal of getting Amanda to sleep. She thought maybe the bed in the guest room might be too high for her to get up on, so after she went to the bathroom we put her on the long couch, but she couldn’t get comfortable so we put her back on the love seat. Then Karen figured she’d need to be able to stretch her legs out some so we moved her back to the longer couch. While all this was going on we were also fussing and fretting with the pillows to try to make Amanda as comfortable as possible, trying to throw in extra pillows or towels or sheets to prop her up here and there.
Finally Amanda decided to try the bed, which also took some adjusting and getting right. She was able to get up on it when we put a floor pillow at the side of the bed to give her just a little extra height. She wanted me to sleep in there with her, reasoning that once I put a pillow over my head and nod off I generally don’t move very much at all.
I’ve got alarms set for 2:30 and 6:30 to give her a Percocet and make sure the pain doesn’t flare up. She’s being careful to try not to take too many or anything though. Tomorrow I think we’re going to space them out to every six hours.
Zach Dotsey
Zach Dotsey