Ankle Update

Told you I’d be back with an update…It’s not much, but here we go with what I know…

I was supposed to get tires before I went to the hospital. I went to the tire place, but they already had a line and the guy told me that it would be AT LEAST an hour and a half. Too long. I decided to chance another trip on the iffy tire.

I got to the hospital a little after 9am. Nelson was in pain and grumpy from not sleeping. The respiratory tech said that she couldn’t authorize giving him a machine set to his high of a setting without a doctor’s verification. I started asking about them providing a C-Pap before we went to Nelson’s room. They assured me the hospital would provide. Grrr. If they would have told me early enough I would have run home and got it—it didn’t matter that it would be a 2hr round trip. Needless to say he didn’t sleep well and it was like someone sucked all his humor out of him.

PT arrived at about 9:45am. The problem with this was Nelson’s pain meds had worn off and he was counting minutes until his next dose. The poor gal from PT was the recipient of some unanticipated ire from Nelson. He hadn’t slept, he was hurting pretty bad, and he couldn’t imagine how he was going to stand up and walk. It took three of us and all Nelson’s strength to get to him scooted to the edge of the bed and then get him upright. I was starting to get really nervous. How in the world was I going to be able to do that?

Our friends, Steve and Rhonda, showed up a little after noon. We visited for a while and then they took me to lunch in the cafeteria. We talked so long that we missed Nelson’s second go around with the PT lady. This one went a little better since he had some pain meds about 15min before the torture session.

We got a call from Dave (Nelson’s boss). Linda, his wife, had gotten a hospital bed when her dad lived with them before he died. So they’re going to bring it down on Monday evening. It’ll be quite a blessing to have that.

I finally came home after Nelson ate his dinner. It was very cold in the room. I was wrapped up in one of the hospital blankets. Tomorrow I’m going to dress a little warmer. Even saying that sounds crazy since it was near 100 degrees here yesterday. We had a storm in the evening and thankfully it cooled things down quite nicely!

I think I’ve mentioned with sufficient repetition that Nelson is quite the special guy. He’s not a constant romantic, but he makes a darn good effort and I appreciate all he does. From the beginning of marriage we have celebrated three anniversaries a year: the anniversary of our first date (Oct 8), the anniversary of our engagement (July 15) and our wedding anniversary (Feb 17). He never forgets these dates and always does something very sweet to commemorate them.

For about the last few weeks he’s had this sheepish grin on and kept telling me that he couldn’t wait till the July anniversary, that I was just going to love my gift. Over and over I heard this. Thursday right after dinner, we were sitting in the living room talking with our friend Mook (guy who used to work with me who got fired and now works with Nelson building the house—I feed him dinner every night…or did). All of a sudden, Nelson blurts out that he just can’t keep it a secret anymore and he hands me an envelope. I open it up and there are two tickets to the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis (a NASCAR race) for August 6. I’m so excited!!!! I hope he’s better enough by then to go. More importantly: I hope my PO will let me go.

About church…Nelson and I had decided on Thursday that we were going to “check out” the church near us that we’ve been watching on TV together. We live in Ashland, Ohio. This just happens to be headquarters for a couple different brands of Brethren Churches. The church we were going to go to is a Brethren Church. Several people associated with the Transformation Network attend there as do several people from work, so I was thinking it would be a good place to start our search. It offers traditional, contemporary, and way contemporary services. The pastor has some thought provoking messages. Several of my seminary (and two of my most favorite) profs attend there. And it’s only a couple blocks from home—I like the idea of being able to walk to church. But….with everything that went down on Friday I didn’t get a chance to call the pastor or my PO so I will try for next Sunday and just worship from my living room before I head to the hospital.

Have a super Sunday!!!