Monthly Archives: June 2012

In preparation for tomorrow’s knee surgery, I’m making cookies.

HUH?

Yep.  Cookies.  You see, I’ve been in enough surgeries to know that the experiences surrounding the actual medical procedure, Pre and Post Op, are really key to a good outcome. And I’m not taking any chances.

In other words, I’m going to bribe my nurses with home-baked cookies.

I’m not above this kind of thing.  Cookies are the universal language.  The ultimate peace-offering.  Good-Will insurance.

I’ve had mean nurses before.  Thankfully, not often.  Fortunately the number of good nurses far outweigh the number of mean ones.   But reality dictates that there always will be a chance that I may be assigned a disgruntled caregiver.  An unhappy camper.  A Nurse Ratchet.  And if I do, I’ll be prepared.

The advantage to having a broken down body that has required multiple surgeries, is that I’ve had an opportunity to find the Achilles heels of ‘Nurse Ratchets.’  I have unlocked the mystery to win them over:  Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I’ll be writing a treatise on it in the near future, but my research is not yet complete.

It also works on policemen, firefighters, overworked teachers, and my children.  It does not, however, work on the employees at the Drivers License Bureau.

They are too far gone.

Tomorrow is my knee surgery.

The day I’m getting cut.

I don’t know what else will happen.  There might be an ACL reconstruction.  There might be a chopping of the Meniscus.  There might be dancing and cheering and angels singing.

I won’t know, I’ll be asleep.

I wonder how many surgeons have picked their noses, or farted, or sneezed on a patient when they are under anesthesia.  It bears asking, but not until after my surgery, I think.

Still, I believe I’ll bathe in Purell after it’s over.

I’m only a little anxious.  I’ve been through far, far worse surgeries than this measly little arthroscopy.  I’ve had organs taken, and my heart burned (oblated) and other gross, and oddly fascinating things done to me.

Most of them legal in the U.S.

I heard a theory that being anesthetized over and over and over again can affect your memory and other mentating parts.  This from Livestrong.com:

“Experience and research suggest potential concerns about cognitive function for  patients who undergo surgery under general anesthesia, according to Harvard  Health Publications. A decline in cognitive ability after surgery has been  observed in both major and more minor surgical procedures.”

So, if post surgery, I don’t remember you, or this blog, or where my belly button is, we’ll know why.

Wish me luck!

I had one eye half-open, and the other still hermetically sealed.  Stumbling to the kitchen, I pushed the ‘on’ button to our beloved Keurig Coffee maker, and wobbled over to the fridge.  I love mornings when I’m not rushed, when I can begin at a nice, easy, relaxed pace.  Nothing is better than a gentle awakening. With a smile, a sigh, and a tug, I opened the fridge door,

and it hit me.

Hard.

Like a big knuckly fist had punched me square in the nose.

The stench was indefinable.  Part garlic, part onion, part something-died-in-the-non-too-distant-past.

My other eye flipped open faster than a runaway roller shade.

“UGH!”

I slammed the door shut.

I don’t know what it was, but I do know I need to find it, remove it, and clean out the fridge before My Captain gets home.  I don’t want him to suffer the same fate.

But I’m afraid.  I’m very afraid.

What could it be?  What forgotten leftover has been evolving in the back of my fridge?  And what if it was just the right combination of organic content that it passed some evolutionary barrier hitherto unknown to man, and has achieved a sentient state?  What if I go in to get it, and it eats my hand?

It’s better not to think about it.  There’s nothing else for it.  I’m going in.

I’m going in.

But first, coffee……

We went to dinner together.  I’d been good all day and wasn’t going to ruin it on a restaurant dinner.  I’d not eaten anything remotely carbohydrate looking so far, and the food that did make it to my mouth was appropriately healthy.  I wasn’t going to ruin my gastronomically successful day with one meal, even if it was on a date.

My Captain had not eaten anything but peanut m & ms all day.  Seriously. When I asked him if he had eaten anything today, he said, “Yes.  M&M’s.”  As if that answer was at all normal or socially accepted.

Have I mentioned he can wear the same jeans he wore in high school?

She came to take our orders.  My Captain ordered a cream and butter laden pasta dish, and I an Asian Salad…replete with cabbage and carrots and other crunchy, yet in all otherways unsatisfying, vegetables.

Oh, and grilled chicken.  Not breaded.  Not fried.  Plain. Old. Grilled.

It was very sad.

But I did it!  I had committed my order to her and felt superior to my fatter self of yesterday.

We waited.  I drank as much iced tea as I could to pre-load my belly.  And then it came.

This mountain.  MOUNTAIN. of Cabbage.  Napa Cabbage is what they called it.  That family sized serving bowl had to be carrying at least one entire head of cabbage.

I poured out the meager little plastic cup of salad dressing…the kind that has that horrendous “Oh, I’m sweet like sugar except that I have this nasty aftertaste” dressing.  I stirred it violently, attempting to get SOME of that dressing on every piece of tasteless crunch I could.

And then, I dug in.

I won’t lie to you.  It took me a while.  There was a lot of chewing, by necessity.  There was no physical way to wolf this salad down.  There was no way to get the suffering over quickly.  I had to endure every last bland, unsatisfying bit of it.

It was hell.  HELL, I tell you!

I couldn’t take it another moment! So, after we paid the check and got up, I demanded to be taken to the bakery nearby for a chocolate eclair.

What?   I’m only human.

That eclair was The Bomb.