Zuihitsu

[sasha]

Time to replace hip #2...

Game Time...

I'm off
to see
the wizard...

[judih]

can't say break a leg, or an arm.
May the good luck dove shit upon you, dear Roy

[stilltrucking]

whiz biz blitz
dire straits
rock on dear mingo

it a came to me one rainy august morn
that we might wake up tomorrow in a pile of ash.
They say I was a rebel till I reached the age of five
it was then that I got caught up in the struggle to survive
lyrics by a waitress in California

I will never forget Peggy in Atascadero

keep in touch amigo hope you get back on your feet okay

[sasha]

November 2, 2022

6:00 a.m. - CHECK-IN:
joke with the admissions nurse...
about the ungodliness of the hour
about robocalls
about the paperwork
about the pajamas I'm wearing
and how they're going to have to come off

6:20 a.m.
ushered to a bathroom
strip down
slip into a jonny
one last attempt to pee
(got a little out)
stuff my effects into a bag

6:25 a.m.
open the door
???
two armed cops watch me emerge
their suspicion level maybe 1-2
on a scale of 10
my escort hurries around a corner
"this way" she says
and leads me deeper into the warren

6:30 a.m.
time for manscaping
lie on a gurney
two young ladies brush aside my modesty
and set to work
I should be self-conscious
but I'm not
their chatter is bright, cheerful,
and thoroughly professional
so we chat

6:40 a.m.
while clippers buzz
multiple interrogators:
your name? date of birth? any allergies?
sometimes two at once...
"Sorry, Ladies" I think (not aloud)
"One at a time, please, one at a time..."
"My corpus collasum is still intact..."
(I also think
"Jesus Christ, don't you talk to anyone outside your department??")

6:55 a.m.
let's go!
they cover my naked privates with the jonny
push the gurney out into the corridor
past the cops
past staffers paying us no mind
through swinging doors
into the OR
hoist me onto The Table
sit me up
X marks the spot for the spinal
needle in my hand
a little blood into a vial
a little syringe into my arm
sleepy... sleepy...
...

...
9:33 a.m.
I toggle back to awareness
not ike slowly bubbling up from a dream
but like snapping on a light
recovery
Janice looking down at me
a pretty, heaviset woman
with a southern accent
"Welcome back, Honey" she says
"How're you feeling?"
I say, with dust-dry mouth, "Thirsty"
"Sorry, Hon, " she says
"No water until the spinal wears off. But..."
and with a conspiratorial wink
lets me sip from a styrofoam cup through a straw
"Thank you," I say
she smiles
"Doc says the surgery went really, really well...."

I can't feel anything below my chest
but I've been here once before
and know it wil pass in time
so I while away the hours trying to wiggle my toes
joking and flirting with the angels of mercy flitting around me
and waiting to be wheeled to my room for the night....

[judih]

and the man's alive! good work through all those processes. and now full recovery mode

[stilltrucking]

thanks for keeping in touch
well written easy reading mingo's kind of writing
i read it in a blur because i did not what to think too much about hospitals think too much about your experience it scared me
ha
nothing wrong with that , as long I keep my thoughts in orbit



best wishes for recovery

[sasha]

my thanks to you both! Mobility returns, and it's not even been 3 days yet......

[judih]

my thanks to you both! Mobility returns, and it's not even been 3 days yet......

so inspiring to those of us afar.

[sasha]

November 2, 2022 - continued

Room 226A - my home for the next 24 hours. I'm in one of those folding hospital beds with a set of pushbutton controls on a side panel for setting the angle of lumbar support and knee elevation. I play with these for a while to find the most comfortable position. I'm also sitting on the tv remote. I untangle myself from the cord and wrap it around a handle built into the side panel so the remote is accessible, but out of the way. There's a small rolling tray on the other side with a box of tissues and a plastic bag with my reading & writing materials. I undertake to organize all this stuff into the tiny space available to me, and when I've minimized the entropy as much as I reasonably can, decide to surf the tv to see what's available. I note that the windowside bed appears to be unoccupied, nor ready to be any time soon, so at least I don't feel compelled to turn the volume down to a barely audible level.

The usual dreadful selection of daytime television - celebrity talk; an hour's worth of sports news stretched into an afternoon's broadcast; the travails of a family of moonshiners in Alaska; a huckster selling an inflatable belt guaranteed to melt the pounds away. But when I fortuitously stumble across an old episode of "Seinfeld", I take the time to graze on a bit of comedic nostalgia.

A kitchen staffer with a digital tablet arrives and asks if I'd be interested in dinner. It's been nearly 24 hrs since I've eaten anything at all, so I respond in the affirmative, and order the baked salmon, despite having found it a bit dry on my previous visit. The claim of a lemon-pesto sauce gives me hope that the kitchen has found a workaround, and subsequent developments justify that hope. Although my belly is empty, I prefer to keep my colon that way for a while longer, and order nothing further than a side of slaw and a mug of coffee. It all hits the spot.

A nurse arrives to check my vitals, asks about my pain level, and offers me an oxycodone. I'm in some discomfort, especially if I move, but decline the offer, accepting an OTC pain med instead. Fateful misstep.

Darkness falls early, and when the dinner tray has been removed, I return to channel surfing. A zoo vet lancing a boil on a diamondback rattlesnake. Another vet attempting to artificially inseminate a kiwi, and still another tagging sharks in the wild. I'd slept poorly the night before, and while the events of the day have not taken much of an emotional toll, by body has undergone significant trauma, and I'm ready to try sleeping by 8:00 p.m. Lights out.

But now the pain in my thigh is a constant throbbing and after nearly an hour of pretending it's not there, give in and press the call button. "Sorry to be a bother," I say to the night nurse, "but I've changed my mind about the oxy."

"Not a problem," she says, and returns a moment later with a pill and a styrofoam cup of water. I swallow the pill, thank her, and lay back. I watch a little more tube to give the drug time to take effect, and when the throbbing lessens, I try for sleep again. But first I try pushing the bedside tray a little further from me, and in the process knock over the glass of water - into my bed. My jonny, pillow, blanket, and sheets are soaked. "Goddammit," I mutter, realizing I'm going to have to summon them again.

This time two of them arrive, and in no time they've replaced my jonny, pillow & blanket, and maneuvered a rubberized mat under me. Brushing off my profuse apologies ("you're not the first to do this"), they turn off the light and return to their station.

By this time I have to pee. Now, I need to describe the apparatus they have given me to accomplish this. Picture a Tupperware or Rubbermaid juice bottle - a rectangular cross-section HDPE container narrowing down to an open neck at its top. Now imagine that rather than being in line with the vessel's vertical axis, the neck is angled 45 degrees from it. That's my urinal for the night. I adjust the bed so I can sit as straight as I can, and since I can't swing my legs over the edge, move the bottle under the covers until I can stick my weiner into the opening. I tilt the bottle to get the neck as far uphill as I can, and hope for the best. Then I let 'er rip.

All goes reasonably well - for a while. As I near completion, I'm concerned that the neck of the bottle might be drifting downhill, and try to readjust - and in the process my member pops out of the opening and sprays wildly onto my fresh jonny, blanket, and sheets. "Son of a fucking bitch!"

Once again, the nurses seem unfazed and perform their duty without comment - but I'm beginning to worry about becoming That Asshole in 226.....

[judih]

Dear 226,
You're not the first
you won't be the last
in fact, your assholeness is amateur. You'll have to try harder
Sincerely yours,
the mgmt

[sasha]

Nov 3, 2022 - I fall asleep after Gail's final checkup, and awaken around 7:00. I stoke up on a hunter's breakfast - then a pair of physical therapists load me into a wheelchair for a ride to the 5th floor gym for some OT (geting in/out of a car/bathtub, ascending/descending a short flight of stairs, etc.) - flying colors (it's all review from last year anyway). Some consultations with members of the team, then - Honorable Discharge!

One last wheelchair ride, this time to the lobby - a short wait by the entrance until Becky pulls up in her car - I clump the walker outside to the curb and into the car - we stop by the pharmacy for a new regimen of drugs - then...

Home.

Doubts: Can I do this? Can I make this journey again? Getting into & out of bed by myself, onto and off of the toilet by myself? Can I wipe? Shower? Can I learn to do my home PT unassisted? Can I fetch my glasses, fix my coffee & fill my mug, make my bed, perform all those homely rituals of life that an old bachelor is accustomed to doing?

Four days later: YES. I can. I do. I will. The journey back is well underway, but it's not until the Home Healthcare guy swaps my walker for a cane, and Beck & I make our first foray to the mailbox & back that the magnitude of this miracle hits me again. There are no tears this time - the surprise isn't that it has happened, but that it is happening AGAIN - that the first miracle was not a fluke. But there were lessons learned: This time I will not overdo the exercises - I will not risk injuring myself like I did last time, trying too hard - though I will contine to imbue them with the sanctity of the religious rites that they are. I do not wish to spend my remaining years as an invalid, and I will not. I accept that I have probably climbed Mount Monadnock for the last time - and that's OK. I accept that I am on the cusp of being an Old Man, but that shall not deter me from the rail trails, or my beloved Birch Hill WMA. I have merely taken a hiatus from them, which will make my return all the sweeter. And I accept that I am at the beginning of the journey; I am not back yet.

And the operative word here is - Yet.

Onward...

[judih]

Again, inspiring words to face the facts (second time round really helps the wisdom factor). And not overdoing, but doing - yes.
So glad you're firmly onto the path of rational recovery.

[stilltrucking]

baby steps at 82
one fall away from a wheel chair
try to take it easy
we got time enough to write
life changes come so fast these day
most mornings I try to eat breakfast with wireman

[stilltrucking]

the profile of “super-agers” — a “subgroup of people that maintain their mental and physical functioning and tend to live longer than the average person their age.”

nyt

oh i want to be in that # when the saints go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVcDZLNW-gA

glad i got read your stuff
resigned to your back pages on studio 8
grateful for that
cold wet November day
glorious weather to still be alive in because
of the magnetic Mary on the dashboard
i got the virgin Mary assuring me that i won't go to hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j5Ohj6s26w
miss you buddy
['url=Plastic Jesus
Widespread Panic
March 14, 2014
Ryman Auditorium
Nashville, TN

[stilltrucking]

Star-crossed,
paper will burn

cool late November night
but I am comfortable in my thermos's
spend a lot of my time thinking of you and missing your writings
but I got your work here on studio eight to tide me over
"yes American decomcracy is dead but no sense getting hysterical about it."
Went to post a picture of the cemetery where my Rose of Agudas Achim is buried but I came up a picture of a giant Israeli flag, and I did not want to go there.

The pity of Punctuation