26 September 2021
After doing the laundry and housework (and shooting over to Mom's to check on the leaking water heater), I visited Joyce just before lunch at the hospital.
At the check-in desk as I waited for my ID label to be printed, I noticed the Sunday paper (quite a bit thinner than it used to be) on the table. When a clerk looked over, I pointed to the paper and he said, "Five dollars."
It says three on the masthead, of course, so he was just joking. "They're free." I took it up to Joyce.
I also brought her a couple of Sconehenge blueberry scones. On the way back from my mother's I stopped at the market for milk and bought a few other things like the scones we sometimes have with our Sunday brunch.
I couldn't bring her the half bottle of prosecco she usually has with them but it's the thought that counts, right?
After lunch we arranged a special treat.
As I turned down her corridor on the fourth floor I heard a faint, "Mike!" I turned around and there she was doing her laps. She was on her first, so I walked the second with her.
She's having no problem walking and it makes her feel a lot better to get the exercise. It's also something like the fifth sign of mobility according to a chart in her room.
The chart starts with 0) no mobility laying in bed, 1) moving in bed, 2) sitting up on the edge of the bed, 3) getting to a chair and walking to the door, 4) getting into the hallway and 5) making laps around the wing. Something like that. I don't remember exactly because I had my half bottle of prosecco.
You can't do stairs with a pole that has your Wound VAC and antibiotics on it, though.
Her lunch arrived when she got back to the room. After lunch we arranged a special treat.
It's brother-in-law George's 87th birthday, so we called his wife and Joyce's sister Carol to wish him a happy one. But she was at sister Amy's new house where everyone else was: Mike (Amy's husband, himself just out of the hospital and another critic of hospital food), Johnny (their son), Shelly (their daughter-in-law), Cora and her sister Dalia (John and Shelly's children).
We switched to a FaceTime call and Mike gave Joyce a tour of the new house, including all three bathrooms.
So that was a nice (if brief) escape from the hospital.
We took another walk, twice around the ward and then I slipped away to arrange for a water heater replacement for my mother.
Funny how every time Joyce goes to the hospital some major appliance breaks down. This time it's my mother's 16-year-old water heater but ours is nearly as old (14 years) and not looking too great.
I just hope it holds out until she returns for her skin graft.