Home at last

Everything went brilliantly. Gallbladder-less, I am home and higher than a kite comfortable, thanks to Vicodin.

I also finished the pair of socks. I had the first sock more than half done before I even arrived at the hospital, because I was so nervous I kept picking them up and ripping off a few rounds. I got no knitting whatsoever done Thursday, but then spent the entire day Friday knitting and waiting, knitting and waiting. I just finished the toe of the second sock about half an hour ago.

I think that is a new speed record for a pair of socks here in the Den.

I find it amazing how quickly they can get you in and out these days. The girl in the bed next to me had come roaring into the emergency room Wednesday night with appendicitis. Quick! To surgery! Four small holes just like mine later, she was going home a few hours before I did Friday.

I had my appendix out in 1981, and I had to stay in the hospital for eight days.

Eight.
Very.
Long.
Days.

But now, in and out. Just like that.

It’s fabulous. My surgeon saw me precisely twenty-four hours after surgery and said I could go home. I had a few hours worth of delay because we first had trouble getting my pain under control (without morphine backing it up, Darvocet didn’t do a whole lot for me), and then they got pissy because I hadn’t eaten any of the “gel-like dessert” (sugar, gluten and flavor free) or drunk the “cranberry-juice-flavored cocktail” or choked down any of the lukewarm water that had once shared a kitchen with a bouillon cube and my tummy wasn’t rumbling even a little bit.

Fortunately, my loyal husband brought me a mocha from the outside world; after I drank it, my guts made appropriate rumblings and I was able to proudly answer, “Yes, yes I have!” when they asked if I had passed gas. (Gotta love hospitals – nowhere else are people so keen to know about your every internal pop and rumble.)

So I was wheeled out of the Land of Gel-Like Desserts and dumped at the curb. Here at home, I have been upgraded to Campbell’s Vegetable Soup and homemade French Onion soup – flavor! Flavor! Ooooooh, lovely flavor!

It all gets better from here.