All Quiet... Well, Mostly

Ahem. So, you've noticed I've been quiet. Not too much action on the ol' blg. Must be something big, right? Something on the order of scaling volcanoes? Or maybe a fabulous trip somewhere, somewhere without internet connectivity?

No, none of that. Well, I *was* in LA last week, and the internet access was spotty at best, but that's hardly an excuse. (Although the business center that represented my only access to the outside world DID block just about any useful site, including Facebook, for heaven's sake.) But really, I haven't been around much because... not much has been happening!

Life has, some might say finally, slowed down. Much of that was externally imposed - my dear better half finally buckled down and had shoulder surgery late in September, so until this week he's been on a strict regimen of range-of-motion stretching and... sling wearing. Also couch-sleeping and painkiller-ingesting, but thankfully both of those lasted less than a week.

The surgery was definitely a non-race report from his perspective, but I think I maybe had some realizations about it as well. It's strange, optional surgery, because you go in to the hospital feeling (mostly) fine, just so some well-intentioned (and truly, truly skilled, in this and most cases) doctor can break you and make you feel terrible. All in the hopes of, eventually, being better off than you were before. And to watch that? To watch my husband, in a matter of hours, going from driving us to the hospital (he knew he'd be on driving probation for a month and a half, so he got it in up to the last minute) to not being able to pour himself a glass of water? It's humbling.

Not as humbling, though, as sitting during the aforementioned surgery in a surgical waiting room, where despite the hospital's best efforts to provide (truly, truly good) privacy, in those few hours you come to know some things about the people you're waiting with. I passed a pair of scissors to two knitting women, waiting for their husband/father to come out of surgery that was decidedly not elective. I read countless Redbook magazines while listening to the boisterous party of six who claimed the largest table in the smallish waiting room, who were anxiously awaiting the beginning of a kidney transplant from a teenage girl's mother to her grandmother. I waited, myself, eyes snapping up each time the phone rang, hoping that this time it would be MY call, telling me that my patient's surgery had begun. I never got that call, it turns out, although the kindly but slightly hard-of-hearing volunteer answering the phone did call once for a patient with a name suspiciously like my own last name, minus the first letter. (Pretty sure that was my call, but bygones...)

Without the call, my mind started to play tricks on me. I mean, this was a fairly straightforward procedure we were talking about, but it DID involve a nerve block, and what if somehow they had missed the mark? What if they had paralyzed my husband and were trying to determine the extent of the damage before some doe-eyed, apologetic resident came to take me into the small consulting room to lead off with, "I'm very sorry, ma'am, but..." Crazy? Yeah, like nightmares are crazy over a cozy breakfast and cup of coffee. Hospitals. Places of nightmares, but places of dreams, too.

Because I did get the important call. The "everything went fine and he's in recovery" call. And the follow-up visit from the resident, not so doe-eyed and thankfully unapologetic in reality, who capably and confidently reassured me that everything had gone fine, and that I could meet the patient in an hour or so.

And yet, when the patient in question was wheeled past me on the way to his room, I couldn't help but tear up a bit. In gratitude, mostly - to see him slightly battered and maybe a little groggy, but whole and there and, most importantly, HIM. In gratitude completely the next day, when, as we waited for discharge, a new patient entered the other side of the semi-private room, and this patient had the hospital menu memorized. Yeah, gratitude completely.

A champ I have for a husband. A champ who never complained, who instead, even in the first days when he barely left the couch and gritted his teeth to raise his elbow 90 degrees, said only, "I can't believe that I feel this good!" A champ who, once I decided it was safe to leave him alone while I returned to work, got himself up off said couch at 6am to make me coffee when he heard me moving upstairs. Who laughed with me when his body declared periods of mandatory deep healing that caused him to go from 60 mph to deep sleep in an instant, then pop awake 90 minutes later demanding to get out of the house, even if it was just to Target.

He got the all-clear to start exercising again this week - more than the physical therapy stretches. So we went for a "run" (which was really a 2-mile walk with some brief running interludes) on Sunday, during which we actually caught the brief 30-minutes of allotted sunshine for the day and so became a glory of pine-needle scent and glowing wintery sunlight. And we went for a "swim" on Monday, which for the patient meant a lot of awkward breaststroke and even more kickboard-assisted laps. Which, for a former distance swimmer, felt I think worse than not being able to lift the elbow 90 degrees. But he never gave up and never gave in to the understandable frustration that the swim caused. And we'll go back. And he'll do better. (And privately, I will enjoy this brief time that represents the ONLY time I will swim faster than him. Yep, I did just go there.)

And when it snows, there will be skiing. Skiing without the worry of dislocating a shoulder. There will be trips to the in-laws, helping take care of the cows without having to self-reduce the shoulder on the side of a pickup truck. I will only have to worry about rattlesnakes and tetanus and black widow spiders (yeah, ranch life IS romantic!), not learning how to not pass out at the words "I think I threw my shoulder out."

Life is quiet, but maybe sometimes quiet is good.