Back in our own place.

So we're home now. All that hospital stuff is over; there were times when it seemed that was never going to end. Today was very different from the rest of the days there. Nobody came early, the doctor eventually came by to say "See you in a week."

The rest of the time there was physical therapy and a lot of waiting. Eventually a nurse came in and started listing off all the things that we needed to do over the next 6 weeks or so. How and when to take medications, how to treat surgical sites, not to drive or operate heavy machinery, especially if you are taking narcotic pain relievers. The nurses repeatedly told us that Ronnie needed to sit in the back seat. The doctor told us that he considered that to be a lot of crap, so we went with him on it and the drive home was much more comfortable for both of us as a result.

We got a bit of a late start because the parking lot had a lot of trouble finding my car. Somehow, they were not able to quickly make the conceptual leap that my saying "I parked it 2 weeks ago" meant that it had been parked there overnight, as opposed to cars that had just come into the lot. When they finally asked me after 10 minutes if I'd parked today or yesterday, it all because clear. It took about 15 more minutes, but they did eventually locate it.

As you may have noticed from my pictures, the hospital is near the George Washington Bridge, which is nice if you're looking for a way to get to New Jersey. Which we did. It finally started to snow just as we approached our house and it never affected anything. Getting in, getting settled, it was all easier than we could have thought. Ronnie was able to climb the stairs without extreme difficulty and is comfortable on our den couch, which is the normal place we hang out. It was very nice to sleep in our own bed.

The next morning began, before I had my coffee mind you, with one of those portable radiators exploding and leaking its entire contents of oil onto the floor. Took me over an hour to (mostly) clean it up. Probably ruined the rug, though I pulled it into the kitchen (hard because it was hot) onto the wood floor before most of the leakage. Finally cooled down enough that I could take it outside. I'm just glad our dog wasn't here. because she would have been a big problem to deal with in this kind of situation.

So the house is no longer slippery and no longer reeks of petroleum products. I can't say that I'm completely used to it yet; the past 2 weeks were too intense and far too disorienting to recover from in less than 24 hours. But today feels better than yesterday and the mantra for this kind of thing is "one day at a time." So I'll gladly settle for being where we are now as opposed to yesterday. Maybe by tomorrow I'll be able to face schoolwork and some of the stuff that needs to get done around here. But that's another story. As is, how much did this actually cost. I'm kind of fascinated by that, because we haven't paid anything yet.