Heart. Heart, heart.

Sometime during my stay in recovery following the open-heart surgery, I was given a red pillow, a red heart=shaped pillow embossed with a graphic of a real heart, veins, valves and all, on one side and the "IU Health" logo and "Methodist Hospital" on the other.  This, I was told, could be clutched to my chest to ease pain particularly when coughing or when attempting any sort of motion.

I soon found I was pleased, nay thrilled, to have the thing.

Nine years ago at the age of 44 Delbert, the elder of my sons had a heart attack culminating in a quintuple by-pass open-heart surgery.  He visited me in hospital while I was still in ICU.  Noting my pillow, he told me, "That will become your best friend."

He was right.  Today marks one month since the surgery and I have slept with that pillow clutched to my chest every night in the interim.  It got a "break" from cuddling me but once and that about three in the morning a couple weeks ago when I inadvertently knocked it to the floor.  I could not get up to retrieve it and I was uncomfortable with the idea of pushing the call-button to ask for someone to pick up a pillow.  So I bemoaned its absence for about two hours.  Help arrived, and I have cherished Pillow carefully since then.

Then.  Then after I was discharged from hospital and sent to rehab I received a call from my younger son, Ken, who told me that while I was in hospital he had had a heart attack at work, was helicoptered from the remote site of the occurrence to Lexington where the cardiologists were able to work their magic via placement of stents in his heart.  He had advised my spouse, my sister and his siblings but inveigled them to vow that they should not tell me, because he did not want me to worry about it while I was in my circumstances.  He called and told me after I was in the nursing home, and his co-conspirators had kept their word.  Kenneth was on his feet and back to work in a matter of days.

On the Other Side of the Door

You have driven or walked past a nursing home on occasion, perhaps frequently.  There may be such a facility that you pass every day of your life.  Perhaps it is a rare moment in which you even give it a thought.

 Or perhaps you have visited a nursing home to see a parent, or grandparent, or a dear friend who resides there.  If this is the case, as it is for me, then you have a somewhat better notion of life as it is lived by a resident there.  But even so, you leave after a period of time, after the visit is over.  

Yes, you have seen those who sit immobile in their wheelchairs, whose only greeting when you speak is a vacant look, a look that possibly is so long that it sees not you but that child who was a playmate seven or eight decades ago, or one whom that person loved and lost in her youth.

You have possibly experienced the atmosphere, the literal air in the building, scented as it is with the cleaning solutions, the bleach that in spite of the honest efforts of staff fails to mask the underlying aroma of humankind.  On a good day perhaps the smell of the overcooked Brussels sprouts permeating everything and semi-successfully masking that which the scouring and scrubbing cannot.

I have experienced both the casual passing-by of these institutions and the visiting within them, for I have had dear ones both family and friends who have spent long days, some have spent long years, within those walls.  I have family members and friends who have been and who are employed in the care of the patients within those walls.  But until this month I have never been an inmate, or a resident if you will, in a nursing home.

This, then, if things go as planned, will be a peek at life on the other side of the door.

The above is the preface to my personal nursing home experiences which I lost while trying to post with a "smart" phone.  I got my computer back and was finally able to locate the text, so as a Sunday break from the routine, these were my thoughts a month before my residency here.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weaknesses."  II Cor. 12:9
 

Today's Chuckle

The chuckle.
 
Joe and I are sitting at adjoining tables, back to back.

Joe:  (To his table mates)  "I am gonna live to be a hundred.  I still have lots of people to piss off."

Me:  *laughing out loud*

And not so funny, but a day-brightener.

Rocky tells us he is getting his scooter today, his face lit up like Christmas.  Boy and new Toy.

"So you'll soon be racing up and down the halls frightening all the old ladies."

Not really the case, for following a couple days of learning to drive his new vehicle he will disappear from these premises.  And good for him.

Random Conversation Sixteen

"When you are as old as I am, , ,", Rocky told me at breakfast.

I bet we are in the same decade," I replied.

"I am seventy-one," said Rocky.  "How old are you?"

"I am eighty-one.  If I were a year younger or you were a year older we would have been in the same decade."

(My daughter met Rocky later.  She told me Rocky looks older than I do.  Ivy is a sweetheart.)

OT and PT

 A word of explanation: Before surgery I had written an introductory piece "On the other side of the door" in which I intended to relate my experiences in the nursing home.  I intended to post it after my arrival here.  Somehow, using BBBH's smartphone I was outsmarted by technology, limited eyesight, and thick fingers.  I totally lost the piece.  So I have been putting up short items on the phone and writing, writing in my notebook.  By "notebook" I mean the kind you had in grade school, completely retrotech.  Today I have my computer.  Connecting to the network here is problematic betimes, so this may not be a "regular feature."

OT and PT

 The ladies of the physical and occupational therapies are a bevy of beauties. No, really.  If we were speaking of the contestants of a beauty pageant we would likely refer to the participants as a bevy of beauties.  That tag is appropriate here as well,  None would qualify as either swimsuit model or fashion model.  But they are beautiful people who enjoy serving their clients.  While each one possesses her own personality they all have two characteristics in common.  They are genuinely pleasant and they are relentless.

I am tired now.

Visiting

You are visiting the nursing home at breakfast time?  See the Old Guy in the  Grey sweatshirt there at the corner table with his face in his Cream o' Wheat bowl?

I am that guy.

Wake me and visit a bit.

S+three weeks.
Rehab going well.  Saw GP today.  Positive outcomes to date.

I m feeling much better. More active, pretty scar on chest.

Thank you, Blog Pals, for your prayers and kindnesses.

Baby steps.