Eludius DL - day 6

My surgeon told me not to lift anything over 10 pounds for 4 weeks. I thought that would be easy enough. Make my wife and kids do all the work? Sure!!! My wife has been great. She's been waiting on me hand-over-fist, to the point where I feel guilty.

It isn't helping that our 17 month old daughter has decided to wake up every evening at 3am and holler for her pacifier. The problem is if you go in to get her, she usually jumps up and wants to get out. On the other hand, if you don't go in there, she keeps hollering. A vicious circle. To make matters worse, my daughter tosses her pacifiers at night, so they're usually hiding under the crib, which is impossible to find at 3am. And of course her other 10 pacifiers can never be found.

So on Tuesday, my wife and daughter are sound asleep. I took a nap, but awoke before them. I later heard my daughter wake up and hollering, "Na-na", which is baby talk for pacifier. I didn't want my wife to wake up since she needed to catch up on her sleep. And I've been feeling pretty good. It should be okay, right? I mean - if I lower the side rails and just roll her over the rail and let gravity take her to the floor she should be okay.

I succeeded in getting her out. No problem! Then as I'm walking out of the room with her hand-in-hand, my wife opens the door from our bedroom and wants to know how the hell I got her out. I told her that Baby climbed out all by herself. Whatever, she says. She's really mad at me. And for good reason.

Now, later in the day, I'm not feeling too well. Some minor pings and pangs of pain in my lower abdomen. Not good. I go back to taking the pain medication on the shorter intervals. My wife knows I'm not comfortable. She gives me the old, "I told you" spiel. Today is the same thing. Ugh. If I messed up the fix, I'll need to have it redone. Dear Lord in Heaven help me!

So in other recovery news....I realize that when I wrote the original post it was much longer than I expected and half doped up I know that I missed half of my story.

When I met with the surgeon he told me that after the surgery no work for a week. And no physical activity for 4 weeks. I asked him to define physical activity. He said no lifting anything over 10 pounds, which is like a gallon of milk. I said, "What about sex?" Well, nothing for a week, but after that it should be okay, just don't do anything crazy. Good enough! You should have heard the way he emphasized "Crazy".

My neighbor calls later and she asks how long I am restricted from physical activity. I say 4 weeks. She kids and says, "Ha, no sex for a month!" I correct her and say I'm only restricted on that for a week. "How is sex not a physical activity?" Not the way we do it, I tell her. She laughs hysterically for a good minute.

I had called the day before the surgery and asked if there was anything I needed to do prior to the operation. The nurse told me nothing other than not to eat after midnight. I tried to subtly ask her about grooming. She tells me they will take care of it. Is this good or bad? I'm not sure.

When I awoke after surgery and gained my senses, the nurse sent my wife to get the car and said she'd dress me. Cool enough. It could have been the drugs, but instead of the 23 year old hot svelte blond chick with really big boobs, the nurse looked more like a late 40's mother of 3 who was really tired and had given up on finding the fountain of youth. She removes my gown and to my horror half of the jungle was gone! What in the world?! Couldn't you have done the whole thing or shaped the rest into a heart or something? Now I'm only half sexy!

When I returned home from surgery I flopped myself on the bed upstairs and never came down until the next day. However, that night when my kids came home from school they all came to see me. My lovely older daughter asked if I needed anything. I told her I needed a 12" Cheese steak sub from Frank's pizzeria. She goes downstairs and tells my wife, "Papa wants a cheese steak!" My daughter returns with the bad news. I tell her that instead of the cheese steak, I'll take a chicken marinara sub. She goes downstairs and says, "Papa said he'll take a chicken marinara sub instead!" My wife just screams in agony.

For the most part the discomfort has been at the point of incision. However, by the looks of me, it should be all over. I woke up on Saturday to find a fat barrel black and purple whiffle bat in my shorts. And the purple Easter eggs? Did the anesthesiologist give my groin a beat-down with a wooden spoon while the doctor performed the surgery? Fortunately, that looks better today.

What else is going on? My dreams are totally crazy. Is this a result of my medicine or my wife's cooking? Someone was walking around in my family room while I tried to sleep last night and I couldn't open my eyes and scream to chase him out. Then a dog was wrapped around my leg as I tried to walk out of Baltimore City in the middle of the night. And I chose to walk home through the bad neighborhoods. What? They're all bad? Good point.

Then, a fighter jet had landed on a highway near the city and a big flatbed truck was hauling it away, but the pilot decided to fire up the engines and fly out himself, only to crash into my old building on Pratt Street sending the building into a fiery collapse, right onto Def Leppard who were performing on the upper deck of the parking garage. To make matters worse, getting out of the city was terrible because of all the traffic, let alone the fire and falling debris. This is when I decided to wake up and finish watching Blazing Saddles, which is actually closer to reality than my current dreams.

That's all for now. I'm starting to fade into another reality that's not controlled by me.