From Jeanette

My Dear Friends,

I have asked Mark to load this up into the blog. He has been updating it in my absence so I figured I’d give him a break.

First let me express my gratitude for all of your thoughts, prayers, cards, flowers, e-mails, visits, phone calls and for feeding my family! Everyone has been great. The outpouring of support has been really touching and I have wept tears of surprise and joy at your kindness.

On Sunday morning, the doc said I was looking better every day and gave me the option to stay another night or go home on Sunday. I said, “I’m outta here!”

Being in the hospital was by no means a restful experience. The one night they gave me a sleeping pill, I was awakened at 2am by a “confused patient” who was yelling in the hall.

The nurse was like, “Sir, this is a hospital. You can’t be yelling in here!”

I thought I was on the orthopedics floor, not the psych ward!

On a normal day, they woke me up three different times starting at 4:30am. There was a shot in the gut, blood pressure & temperature, and a blood draw. Each time, they seemed to come back just as I dozed off again. For the Sunday blood draw, the tech turned on a bright overhead light.

“Time for your blood draw!” she announced.

I would’ve slapped her if I hadn’t been blinded by the light.

Because of the narcotics they were giving me for pain, I was unable to eat for three days. I could not even keep crackers and ginger ale down. Heck, I was throwing up stuff I never ate! It was the sickest I’ve ever felt in my whole life, even worse than chemo. I feel sorry for the people who visited me on those days. I was not a pretty sight.

It took about another day of a liquid diet to flush those narcotics out of my system. On Saturday night, the nurse raided the secret food stash and gave me one of those little ice cream cups with the cardboard top you peel off. I kept it down and that was the best ice cream I ever ate.

Now I should say that the nurses and nursing assistants at Beaumont were caring, knowledgeable people. They were sympathetic and nothing grossed them out. The weekend night nurse was a 23-year old young lady. It was cool to see someone so young have it all together. Another nurse was the spitting image of actress Sandra Bullock!

I’m glad to be home. Before I dozed off for a nap on Sunday, I made Mark swear to me that I was not dreaming and I would not wake up in the hospital. Mark has been great. Once again, he has become my hero. He has played the faithful companion and let me cry on his shoulder when needed. He tirelessly retrieves things I need and helps in every way he can. I am very lucky to have him.

At 4am today, I had to use the bathroom. I woke Mark up and the journey began. He had to put my TED (super support hose) on me, get me up out of bed, walk me to the bathroom, then repeat the whole thing in reverse. The whole process took 25 minutes! I will always be thankful when I can walk again. I never realized how hard it is to be laid up.

I have been getting around on my crutches. It takes forever to get upstairs and even longer to go down. (Of course the bedrooms are on the second floor!) I was on crutches before surgery, but now the hip stiffness slows me down. Just taking some regular Motrin for it. Not on any other drugs now.

I showed the Beaumont therapists I could do stairs but they had to teach me the proper technique to get into and out of the passenger side of a car. I am not allowed to bend my body more than 90 degrees. Won’t be driving for several weeks.

The scar from surgery looks about 8 inches long. I counted 34 staples. Not looking forward to getting those removed!

Just one more thing, Mikey wanted me to add how much he and Jesse love me and are glad that I’m home. They’re so sweet. I regret that they have to find out life is hard at such an early age, but they’re both doing well and are giving me lots of hugs.

Well, it’s getting late. Time to begin the journey up the stairs.

-Jeanette