Things I Think: Brought To You By Percoset

1. Never lie to Sarah. She had shot me an email asking how I was feeling Thursday and I lied and said “better”. Within seconds my lung collapsed and I texted her the truth from the ambulance. 🙂

2. I am officially a non smoker for really the first time in my life. I’d tell you how I did it but you’ll be better off buying the patches…

3. God bless nurses… this was a truly awful past few days and they made it bearable. I arrived at the hospital and was waiting for what was coming…they take you to a room, cut a hole in your side, and ram a steel tube between your ribs that is hooked into suction which re-inflates your lung. That tube stays in your side until you leave when it is removed as violently as it was delivered . The surgeon hadn’t arrived and I thought I was dying…the little nurse came up and asked how I was doing. I told her I was “live blogging my demise”. She said “not if I have anything to say about it”…and said it so I actually believed it. That was a gift. Through that day, through the surgery, and all the procedures 24/7 afterwards they treated me with great respect, kindness, and dignity. I arrived at the hospital with shoes, no socks, sweats, and a teeshirt having neither showered, nor brushed my teeth. I finally got my teeth brushed the day I left. I looked and smelled like a derelict but was never treated as one. God bless em…

4. Miss Kitty was very upset that she wasn’t allowed visiting privledges.

5. I didn’t know he worked at the hospital…didn’t know he was a nurse. He knew me and he knew my public image…which didn’t fit the true image he was seeing of broken down, confused, sick, old man. He waited till he was off and no one was around…and he quietly came and prayed for me. I will never forget this act of kindness and dignity offered to a man who had lost his own.

6. There were others there, even though they weren’t.

7. Trey’s mom is a nurse and she was there for the hard part of the morning and even let me pretend that I had set all the parameters for my treatment. 🙂

8. Throughout the whole ordeal I was surrounded by people doing impersonations of Jesus…that’s about the only way I can describe it. Faith operating in vocation is a powerful force for good.

9. I had people all over the world and right next to me praying for me. Most people in the hospital did not. This is really, really  disturbing to me…

10. Because of the epidural pain meds I had mental clarity for about 10 minutes at a time and couldn’t really focus on anything…but prayer. I’d prefer a cabin next time without the drama, but it was still a fruitful time spiritually.