I am NOT talking about Sal.  That gal is charging along!  She ain’t sprinting yet but she gets up, looks at her walker as if to dismiss it…and I have to say, “Use the walker, Sweetie.  You are only at day 5 and you are practically moving well enough for Cirque du Soleil tryouts already.  Please do not push it.”  “I won’t”, she says.  And then she walks the five feet to get her walker.

This is day five after the operation but only day three of being on J&J’s  front lawn.  The entry to the moho is over 100 feet from the entry to the bathroom.  She has been down that path many times already.  I am guessing that she has walked close to 1000 feet from having been discharged.  To me, that is amazingly fast recovery time.  Admittedly, her endurance is limited.  After each trek, she kinda collapses but only for ten or 15 minutes.  C’mon!  That’s pretty damn good.

I can’t really say that I AM the invalid……because, I am not.  But I am a bit constrained by my space.  I am a 2XL in a 1XL space, if you get my meaning.  The kitchen has precisely 2 square feet of counter space and so my culinary efforts are very, very limited.  Take Out Chinese last night.  Friend’s Thai curry ‘take-out’ the night before.  But I can make her coffee and a bowl of cereal so, in that sense, I am a great husband.

Well, good enough, it seems.  She’s still smiling and in very good spirits.

Unless the scheduled physio (starting next week) knocks her down, I am thinking she will be quicker than the 6 weeks they estimated.  I am gonna dissuade accelerating the healing process but, to be frank, she is already accelerating it naturally.

“So, Sal…..maybe we should talk about the ravine and the plumbing pick-up?”

“Ok, Ok….I’ll slow down.  I will.  I promise.” 

Our routine is pretty sad, really.  We wake up late (9:00).  Say nice morning things to each other.  Then I make her coffee and me, tea.  We look at emails (very important to email us as it is the only real entertainment we have) and then we trek to the bathrooms for ablutions.  By the time we have done that, the clock does not seem to have moved….it’s like we are caught in a ‘rip or tear’ in the time-space-front lawn continuum. The day ssslllllooowwwwwsssssss.  But Sal has to do exercises a few times a day and I get to be the ‘personal trainer.’  “Push, Sal.  Push.  That’s right.  Lift Sal.  C’mon, try harder.  Lift!  Now stretch, Sal, stretch.  Can you wash those dishes now?”

Oh, I am only kidding, you guys.  I wash the dishes.  Of course I wash the dishes!  That should NOT have to be said out loud but I tend to paint myself as a dickhead and that is what a dickhead would do.  I may NOT be a total dickhead but I certainly know how it is done.  And I COULD relapse into dick-headism at any moment.

And THAT is why I said ‘a day in the life of a dic…..ooops……invalid’.