Jen made one of her favorites, chicken madness, a take on a dish of the same name from one of her favorite D.C. restaurants.
The next morning we got an early start and walked to the hospital. While our relationship hasn't changed all that much since our last trip to the hospital together there was something big that had changed. I was now her husband and that meant that the apparently all the doctors and nurses would pretty much treat me as if I was actually her. Some of this may have been the product of not going through the horrible emergency room, however, now I was privy to all sorts of information. They even let me stay with her the whole time despite the sign above her bed that declared that visitors were only allowed to visit for five minutes every two hours. This was a right they extended to the gentleman visiting the woman in the bed to Jen's left who decided that 6:20AM was the perfect time to practice his new stand up routine and continually got up out of his chair to do a really loud impression of some guy he used to work with.
After a while of killing time in the waiting room the doctor came over and sat next to me to explain how the surgery went. He took out a pen and drew all over the leg of his scrubs to explain exactly what he'd done during the surgery. Apparently this is standard surgeon practice as I noticed there were drawings all over his scrubs to the point that he resembled the cover of a Ray Bradbury short story compilation.
Jen spent most of Friday in excruciating pain while I tried to do what I could to help her out. That involved taking dinner requests so I made clam chowder for Jen. Sadly the chowder was not sufficiently enjoyed through the intense pain coming from Jen's left knee.
Friday night was pretty rough for Jen so Saturday morning began with me meeting the doctor outside the hospital to get a prescription for a new, stronger pain medication. The doctor met me outside the hospital which I suppose is legal, it just seems like it should be illegal. Maybe if he was wearing scrubs or a white jacket it wouldn't have seemed as illicit, however, dressed as he was in a button up shirt and blue jeans it seemed like I should have been keeping an eye out for the cops.
Here's a picture of Jen pretending to not be hating life. The new pain killers worked in perfect three hour stretches which was unfortunate for Jen considering she could only take the pills every four hours and they took an hour to kick in.
Not even scallops and roasted vegetables could be enjoyed. To kill the times between doses of medicine we watched most of the first season of Chuck as well as Baby Mama. Unfortunately some of the more startling scenes in Chuck and some of the funnier scenes in Baby Mama would occasionally make Jen jerk her leg slightly which resulted in subsequent fits of agony.
This morning we woke up after getting very little sleep last night. Jen was feeling a little better except that apparently she is allergic to the new prescription and broke out in a full body rash. Luckily I didn't have to make my fifteenth trip to Rite Aid in 48 hours because I still had an ample supply of aloe vera from a previous run in with a jet of super-heated steam.
I called Jen's doctor to explain the rash. I told him that she had a similar allergic reaction from penicillin. He quickly cut me off to tell me that there was no penicillin in what he had prescribed for her. I told him that I knew that but I was just comparing the allergic reaction. This had no affect. I think he thinks I'm an idiot.
I may be an idiot but I'm an idiot who can make a kickass no-mayo tuna salad. I used a little hummus, green olive, caper, lemon juice, olive oil, chopped tomato, and dill. I served the salad over toasted naan bread with some mixed greens and turkey bacon. This was the first food that Jen actually seemed to enjoy since the surgery.
I'd spent all morning cleaning, doing laundry, and tending to Jen when right after lunch I hit a wall. We were both pretty exhausted after 48 hours of very little sleep and decided to take a nap. The nap extended for about two hours and we both felt considerably better afterward.
After waking up and getting our bearings we concluded watching the first season of Chuck and rolled right into the first season of How I Met Your Mother. I'm having a hard time deciding on my favorite character from the two shows but it may have to be Harry Tang from Chuck. What a guy.
For dinner I made my famous Pasta a la Freezer and Jen even had a second helping which means that she is well on the road to recovery. She also lost track of when the last time she took her pain medicine was which is a big improvement over this time last night when she was panting and counting down the number of minutes until she was due for her next dose.
There are a lot of loose ends to tie up tomorrow. Most importantly we have to figure out a way to remember to put Jen's sock on before she gets up to use the bathroom. With a bare foot it is nearly impossible to push her foot across the floor but with a sock she just glides along the wood like a hovercraft. A slow, suffering, hovercraft on crutches.
2 comments:
That was a very thorough report! Thanks for letting us know that Jen is doing much better. I saw Baby Mama and I didn't have high expectations, but it turned out to be pretty funny.
Yeah, it was funny. I thoroughly enjoyed all the Steve Martin bits in particular.
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