Recovery Report: Day 8

Aaron had a good day today. Mine was a little goofy. I think my brain is addled.

This morning we took Aaron's dad to the airport. Joyce is staying another week. On the way we stopped to fill one of my tires with air and Rick noticed it had a piece of metal in it, which would explain the slow leak. Dropped him off and I went the wrong direction on the highway. Please send coffee.

We went to the hospital and hung out and took walks with Aaron. He did well through the day with only pain pills, no IV drugs, so I hope he can get through the night that way. If he can and the blood thinner levels are good in the morning, he should get to go home. His biggest annoyance today was that he has been feeling itchy all week but now it's a full-on rash all over. The nurse looked up all his drugs to see if it said any can cause itching, and it could be his pain meds, or just the way everything is interacting, or what the linens are washed in, or the super concentrated soap they gave him. I tend to think maybe the soap since he seemed to get worse after trying to wash away the itch, so I got him new soap and they got him hypoallergenic linens and Benedryl. 'Cuz he wasn't on enough drugs.

In between all that I decided my brain was too fuzzy and I needed to go get the tire fixed and crash in my hotel room for a while. I went to the van and found a note: "Just a friendly note from the valet staff that you have a flat tire." Yep, FLAT, like can't even drive it to the gas station flat. But the nice, probably bored valet guy offered to help me change it. Of course I have only had this van 6 weeks so I wasn't familiar with its spare and jack system. We spent an embarrassing amount of time puzzling over how a T-shaped piece could "tilt through hole to remove spare" when the T is bigger than the hole. I felt like a monkey with no depth perception. He said, "You'd think a college degree would be helpful here," and "Don't they say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?" Then he beat it on the ground and got it into two pieces as apparently required. Duh. The poor guy got filthy and can't accept tips. I nominated him for a Rose Award; maybe he'll get a two-cent raise.

Got the tire fixed; it had not one but two pieces of metal in it, which would explain the rapid acceleration of flatativity. Went to the hotel where, oh yes, I had left the cell phone in the morning, and got a 45-minute nap.

We're hoping to get to the hospital early enough tomorrow to see the surgeon on his early morning rounds. I don't know what time they'll check Aaron's blood and make a decision about letting him go home. But we're all about ready to get out of here.

There's no place like home . . . There's no place like home . . . There's no place like home . . .