How Not to Start the Holidays, Pt 2
First off, thank you to all who responded via e-mail or LJ sending healing thoughts and best wishes. I showed many of them to my Mom and they were very appreciated by both of us.
Dad is still in the hospital and he is doing reasonably well. He is having little pain or problems with the incision/surgery. Most of his discomfort and issues tend to be from swelling/bloating from fluid retention. He has been on IV fluids (lactated ringers) since the surgery and he is getting "full". They started him on a liquid diet yesterday or today (I'm not sure which). He was supposed to start the liquid diet earlier but he was not "processing" his intake as much as they wanted. He is supposed to be up and walking and sitting upright 4 times a day to help with this. Once things start moving well, he can move on from liquid to soft to normal foods. Once he can handle normal food he can come home.
So Dad ended up spending Christmas in the hospital; not the funniest place to spend a holiday. Earlier in the week (don't remember when ... Sun? Mon?) I stopped at Jo-Ann's (It was Sun after all, I remember now) and picked up a little 12"(?) fake tree, a holiday candle holder wreath to set it in, and three fake poinsettias (one for Dad, two for home around the tree) and took these up to his room and set them out on his end table there and positioned it where he could see it. When Mom and I decorated the tree (and put the lights on, and off, and on again once we realized we didn't need a plug at the top for the Angel; she doesn't have an electric halo since Mom refitted her) I video-taped the proceedings so Dad can watch it later. We took a few presents up to the hospital yesterday to open. (I also video-taped that and opening presents at home and Christmas dinner as well) We brought up a book Mom got for Dad, a gift I bought for them both, and a couple presents from them to me (gifts that were both my Dad's idea). The book was the 20th Anniversary "Bathroom Reader", I bought them a digital picture frame (which I loaded up today with pictures from this week and last month's Thanksgiving.) The gifts from Dad and Mom was a CD that Dad was showing/playing for me at Thanksgiving (they had two copies) and a current MSU Yearbook (it seems they had an over-run or something and were giving away extras) It has lots of info about MSU. Dad picked one up earlier and picked up another one when they had more free copies.
Tommorow my uncle, his wife (Dad's brother and SIL) and Grandma are coming down to visit. Grandma is going to stay for a while but Brother and SIL are coming for the day, spending the night, and probably going home on Friday.
Hmm, anything else to add? I've been up to the hospital every day for at least a few hours, been eating some in the hospital cafeteria (food is not bad, had fried shrimp the other day, tonight's selection wasn't too impressive), been trying to stay cheerful. We had some snow for Christmas. We had a bunch from the previous weekend, mostly melted, got some flurries Mon/Tue so we had some white on Christmas, and mostly melted again now (though the mud in the driveway seems to be frozen again). We had more snow on Thanksgiving then we had for Christmas but both ended up being "white"