I am home. It is amazing how clear it is knowing when one is ready to leave the hospital. On Sunday when they said I was not going home, I leaned back on my stiff, plastic hospital pillow and sighed with relief. Yesterday (Monday) I was asking what was it I exactly needed to do in order to be released from the hospital. The Doc's had decided at 7:30 a.m. that I could go home, but the orders seemed to be lost until afternoon, when I finally convinced the nurse that I knew I would do better eating and drinking at home. This was after they "advanced" my diet to "mechanical soft". Do you know what mechanical soft means? I thought it meant that they mechanically soften the food, in my mind I was thinking blender. So imagine my surprise when they brought this tray and opened it up and there on the plate was rigatoni, green beans and mashed potatoes. I had not chewed a thing since surgery and drank about 1/8 a cup of liquid (homemade vanilla flavored Ensure! don't laugh it is a measure of how bad I feel that it actually tasted good to be!) the look on my face must have been priceless - and I was really concerned that they wouldn't let me out without trying to eat from that tray. There was Ensure (handmade vanilla flavored) so I drank more of that - and finally got the charge nurse to listen to me while I asked what exactly did I have to do to be able to leave since the DOCTOR had written up my discharge orders 5 hrs. earlier! Within 15 minutes - the orders where found, and things started to roll -- shower, drugs to take home, daughter to call, Kathleen getting all of my things together --- and by 3 p.m. I was home sweet home.
I am swallowing, have discovered mashed bananas and chopped peaches very yummy - the banana does a great job of masking the bitter taste of my pain pills which have to be crushed. The Chicken Broth is still the best - I am branching out tonite and having some miso soup. I am hydrating - ymmm ensure and white peony tea. Best of all Pain Management is working well. Slightly loopy with enough sense to keep resting, not over do and keeping up my healing images....I am feeling good about my choice to do this surgery --- the next couple of days present the biggest risk for bleeding - I am imagining my appt. with Dr. Goding (for real that's his name!) on Thursday and he will be saying, "Looks absolutely perfect!" Keep up the good work.
Keep the white light, good thoughts, well wishes coming.
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