Feeling good and clean

It's lunchtime in room 215 at Christus Santa Rosa Hospital, although I don't feel much like eating.

Last night, the surgery went well. The surgeons cleaned out my knee more aggressively than ever before, removing any tissue they deemed might be remotely infected. As I awoke from the surgery, my pain was very different from the throbbing, constant pain caused by the swelling. Instead, I felt like my knee had been ripped apart. I could feel their aggressiveness via the stabbing pain, but I was glad to have, at least, a new kind of pain, one that would hopefully be temporary.

The doctor ordered some super sweet medication to help me sleep through the night, and except for being awoken for my regular doses of Vicodin, vital signs, and labs, I slept soundly and deeply for the first time in 5 days. Waking up this morning, the stabbing pain from the night before was gone. In fact, I didn't feel much pain at all. Was I dreaming? My dad soon arrived with some magazines, and I realized that I was really awake. He called in my breakfast to room service, a breakfast taco, a banana, and "the largest black coffee you can find." Sitting in the room eating breakfast talking to my dad, it ALMOST felt like he and I were sipping coffee in a coffee house, a coffee house with an IV pole.

In short, it was a good morning. I feel good for the first time in a long time. All my doctors have come by and talked to me, essentially saying the same thing: we don't know why this happened again, it's never happened before, we're going to put our heads together and try to figure out what to do, . . . . . My day has been relatively good so far, broken up by visits from the physical therapy woman who has been forcing me to straighten and bend my leg--very painful, but very necessary.

I even had the housekeeper come in and do an Extreme Makeover, changing the linens and sheets on my bed, emptying trash, mopping the floor, all while Shealynn helped me sponge bathe in the chair next to the bed. Before today, I never knew there was a "Shampoo plus Conditioner Cap," a warm cap filled with lather that you put on, then massage all over you head. After waiting a few minutes for the unscented conditioner to do its softening magic, you simply remove the cap, and towel dry your head.

It's not Pert Plus under a cascade of hot water, but it does have a psychological benefit of helping me "feel" clean. As of right now, it looks like I might get a chance to shower cap it through Saturday, trying to get home by Sunday and back to school by Monday.