Distractions in a Room Full of Pain

After the surgery, any move meant pain and nausea. Extremely weak and now nauseated coming out of anesthesia, I was admitted to the hospital. 

"Room 608 is ready for her," someone said. And away we went, Jonathan now by my side. The Beckers had spent those hours of surgery with him in the hospital cafe, and had ordered breakfast for the three, not letting him pay. It helped him as he waited on news from the surgeon. We had been told there was an update screen in the waiting area where people could check on the status of a patient, sort of like the update screens at an airport, I supposed. 

"Pre-op."

"In surgery"

"In recovery." Or whatever they say, who knows? 

Now I was "post-op," I was quite sure. Had I been a bit stronger and lived nearby, they may have sent me home. As it was, since insurance would cover it, I accepted admittance to the hospital. I don't think I could have gone home, I was too weak and in too much pain. 

Pain meds helped. The Beckers stopped in at my new room just to say hi and bye, as nurses were bustling to take care of me, and later my angel friend, Linda, who also has cancer but just received good news and can get off her chemo med now, stopped by with a friend. 

 

Outside my window, as Jonathan sat near it trying to patch a few business phone calls, texts, or invoices into his sitting time, a very noisy helicopter landed on the hospital roof nearby where aides arrived with a stretcher and took a patient in. Jonathan was eager for the distraction, taking photos and a video to send our children. The helicopter came again, not long later, with another patient or two, and that night, it roared by my window two or three times. We were on just the right floor to observe it from my window. 

It was literally all I could manage to get myself up every few hours to use the bathroom. I had no idea that it takes chest muscles to get up from bed. For 59 years, I've taken it for granted. 

I was only allowed pain med at the prescribed times, and so during the last hour and a half, it was a blessing to have Brent and Nicki Woodard arrive and visit for an hour. We had a most interesting visit, distracting me from the pain until almost time to get ibuprofen again-a huge white pill that I just barely managed to get down. 

 

Meanwhile, Jonathan and I were getting photos Danny was sending on his way out of Mexico.  He, Tim, Carrie and other cousins had traveled down to roof this building (above) and prepare for the next week's VBS. 

 

Other cousins--Ezra, Ernest Barth, David and Candace, were along as well. Danny said one mealtime they ate cactus leaf!

The view from the roof they did showed the mission tabernacle in the distance, the building where my brother Fain and Regina were married on New Years Day about 32 years ago. I was the bridesmaid, dressed in light green along with three other bridesmaids in pink, yellow, and light blue. I loved the pastel rainbow colors. And that mission is still going. 

Rafters were welded to rebar sticking out of the concrete, and the crew welded purlins to the rafters. Nearly every day it rained, and the crew would have to sweep rain water off the top floor until the roof was on.

The guys also poured sidewalk from the front of the tabernacle to the dining hall/dorm stairs--until the cement ran out. They mixed it with a mixer behind the big building and hauled it down in wheel barrows.

 

Danny said the young people climbed the mountain above the place where they worked, and the trees were such that they could climb all the way to the top and stick their heads out!  

And here was Ernest, my nephew, doing just that! Danny also wrote that the trees "were also crawling with ants the whole way up, and they bit!"

In the middle of that first and probably worst day of pain, I felt blessed to have all the news coming in from Danny as our children caught their flights out of Mexico and flew back to the US, having a layover in Dallas, to arrive in Denver late Friday night. The children were sticking around in Colorado over the weekend.