Home!

Didn't even need a jacket!

Introducing the new world (local) record for going home after a transhiatal esophagectomy (as conducted by Dr. Cahill, veteran of 100+ of these surgeries), a mere SIX NIGHTS in the Hospital.

I was greeted by a dogwood tree in full bloom and a beautiful row of tulips.  Mary has fixed up 2 "dens" for me to hang out in, day and night that can accommodate visitors and multimedia (books and DVDs).  The cats are very interested in my feeding tube.

A toast to all the awesome nurses and personnel at Lacks Cancer Center who go the extra mile to comfort patients, get people on their feet quickly and remind them to use those blue breathy-gadgets with the little ball.  Those suckers (the gadgets) WORK.  Actually no one had to remind me.  I thought of using them as doing lung push-ups and I credit that extra workout for my short recovery time.

Speaking of working, all of you who read my last post and prayed for my colon, you should know that your prayers were answered!  I also got my 17 staples pulled from the neck scar and I'm sad to say that it is much less scary.   The window of opportunity for you low-budged horror movie makers to use me as a walk-on extra has closed. (BTW: Do you think "scar" has anything to do with the origin of the word "scary"? Etymologists, please get back to me.)

One thing that is not working correctly is my voice.  We thought that removing the nose tube might fix that, but alas.  The nerve to my vocal cords got a bit stretched during the operation.  So, I sound funny.  It is supposed to gradually get better.  I sure hope so.  If you call me to chat, you will soon regret it.  I'll squeak out a few words and then I will start coughing.  The coughs sound funny, which is a plus, but they also kind of hurt.  I'll keep you up to date in this blog when it is safe to converse.

We had the in-home feeding pump demo already and the gadget aspect is pretty appealing to me.  Lot's of tubes, connectors, valves and buttons to press, complete with menus, lights and occasional dinging noises.  And the really cool thing is that I, personally am a key accessory in the circuit.  It won't work unless I am plugged in.  How awesome is that!  and the pièce de résistance is that I can see right now that some of the parts that will be left over when am am done with the pump have great secondary uses for video production.  (I'm thinking of you, Girbe.)

I am officially open for visitors. You will be astonished at how good a guy ravaged with two cancers and 2 operations can look!  Days especially can be long.  I only request that you call or email first and keep visits reasonably short.  My cue for you to leave is that I will fall asleep.  My cue for you to stay is that I will insist that you stay longer and after you say, "no, I really must go" then I will insist one more time; and then you can stay... until I fall asleep. I will never insist a third time so you can always escape after the first instance  Oh... a few more rules.  Look for a bottle of hand sanitizer in the room and clean off all your parts that you think I might want to touch. In 99.9% of cases I'm talking about your hands.  For my hand-less friends, I'm talking about your feet. Finally, (and I'll keep saying this) I don't expect anyone to visit.  If you are the visiting type, that is a bonus.  But I love my email/ Facebook/ Hallmark correspondents and my rarely-corresponders equally as much.

Being home is so sweet!