Just after I posted yesterday’s blog, Chris started feeling nauseous. The scrambled eggs delivered by food service no longer sounded appealing, so he just took a few small bites. We were worried that would happen 🙁

The night nurse was great about helping Chris work through his symptoms, so thankfully, Chris was able to get some good sleep.

Today, Chris has been slowly testing foods like smoothies and oatmeal. It seems to be going fairly well. However, his incision is starting to get pretty sore, and I think he can finally feel the results of his organs being cut, flipped, and flopped – along with all the thrashing he did during the “24 hours which shall not be named”.

The great news is he took a shower today, and the occupational therapist went through the average things he’ll be doing at home, such as getting out of bed, walking up the stairs, getting food out of the refrigerator, getting in a step-up shower, etc. She said, “Oh, he’ll have no trouble!” 🏆

It sounds like he’ll be discharged tomorrow, but we’ll see how he does tonight and what Dr. Liu says in the morning.

*****

On an entirely different note, when I left the hospital on Tuesday night, I rode in the elevator with an older gentleman and a cart full of belongings. I get the feeling that people on floors 5 & 6 have a pretty good understanding of what each of us is going through, so I asked him if he was getting to go home. He let me know that his wife was getting discharged, and she had been here for two weeks healing from three different surgeries.

The elevator doors opened, and we continued talking while he wheeled the cart filled with his wife’s belongings.

Her incisions from the first surgery didn’t heal, so she required two additional surgeries. Those incisions didn’t heal either, so they left them open. I have no idea what the process for this is, but he showed me some kind of large bag and explained that the bag has some type of vacuum-type suction, and she would put her wound into it several times a day.

He asked me how long I had been here, and I told him that my husband had surgery 6 days ago, the details of why we were here and that we were hoping he’d go home tomorrow.

I then asked him if home health care would be coming to help him with his wife each day, and he said no, just three days a week. I think my eyes teared up at that point (you know, #jennycried and all). I couldn’t imagine being him, in charge of caring for his wife and her wounds that aren’t healing.

At this point, we were at the front door of the hospital. He said, “My name is Richard; it’s been so nice to talk to you. People just don’t want to talk anymore after COVID.” I introduced myself and told him I really enjoyed our conversation and I hoped his wife would feel better soon. Richard opened his arms, and I hugged him while he said, “I hope your husband feels better soon.”

We walked out the front door and headed in different directions.

“It was so good to meet you, Jenny.”

“It was so good to meet you, Richard. Take care”

❤️