A home panda and a work panda

I'm still taking painkillers, so please bear with me if this seems weird. Boy, I'm grateful for spell check.

So I had surgery on Thursday morning. It went all right. The myomectomy was done, plus the surgeon found and removed a cyst on my right ovary while he was there. L'Ailee has watched both surgeries, and she said this myomectomy didn't take nearly as long as the last one I had (five years ago). She's had a couple of surgeries during our time together, too, and I didn't watch either because I don't do well with blood. I'm still amazed that she demands to watch. She wants to make sure nothing untoward happens, that they only slice into the places I personally marked up with their sharpie marker and that nobody leaves a sponge or watch inside me.

When I woke up from the anesthetic, people were talking about a plane that hit a building in Texas. So I wanted to know what they were talking about. At first, the nurse there thought it was too upsetting for me, but L'Ailee knew I wouldn't feel right until my curiosity was satisfied. So we turned on CNN. I was stunned not by how crazy Joe Stack's manifesto sounded, but by how almost sane it sounded, like things I've heard in private conversations and read online. Not everyone has a plane, but lots of people have guns and knives. "I don't think this is going to end in Texas," L'Ailee says I said. I cried, and the nurse asked me if I knew anyone in Austin. When I said no, she said we definitely needed to change the channel, and I let her have her way on that. I'm no longer shaking off anesthesia or on a morphine pump. I still feel that way.

It was upsetting L'Ailee, too. Her mind went right to 9/11--as I've mentioned, she worked at the WTC. It occured to me later that maybe that nurse and other members of the hospital staff might have immediately thought of 9/11, too. L'Ailee found the station that was going to show Olympics ice hockey for me. The room was going to be semi-private--a screen in between me and an older woman who L'Ailee says was probably Catholic. But the woman was upset about L'Ailee and I acting like a couple, like, the way I called her "babydoll" and she called me "darling." She wanted to be transferred away from us. I told her that if she really wanted to put people out and let me have a private room because she's a bigot, she could be my guest. (I *think* I said that, anyway.) She got her wish, and I was okay with that.

L'Ailee decided she wanted to stay overnight with me, and went home to get herself some stuff and arrange a babysitter for the cats. She gets paid by the class, and she missed quite a few, but I'm glad she stayed with me. I forgot how in the hospital, you can't just sleep straight through the evening. Nurses keep wanting to take your vital signs and make you do stuff. Well, I understand. When they go for your insides, they want to make sure everything still works properly. I drank awful diet ginger ale and watched most of USA versus Norway mens', some of the USA womens' game, and about half of Canada versus Switzerland mens'. (L'Ailee made sure I was awake for the shootout.) I was glad to have something to think about besides the building in Texas and feeling bad. They let me wear my Team USA Womens' T-shirt as a nightshirt, and L'Ailee wore her Team Russia/Evgeni Malkin T-shirt with track pants. This seemed to tickle the night nurse. It was almost like a sleepover, with L'Ailee on the cot next to me and the two of us talking and cheering. The older Catholic woman might have been on to something.

I went home Friday afternoon, once my regular gynecologist and the surgeon had visited with me and everyone was satisfied that everything worked okay. L'Ailee made a bed for me on the couch and taught her afternoon classes while I slept. Percocet's not as good as that lovely morphine pump, but it does have advantages, like not being delivered by IV. I got flowers delivered to me, and two big panda teddy bears. I told my boss how the last time I had this, I had to prop a pillow or teddy bear up to my stomach while I worked at a desk for a week because it would hurt like crazy otherwise. She promised me a panda because I love them, and she delivered! So did my work husband. So now I have a home panda and a work panda. The home panda's on my lap now. It seems silly, but it really does help.

I got my surgical staples out this morning, and everything seems all right so far. I'm still sleeping on the couch, and I will be for a while. I'm really glad L'Ailee was next to me at the hospital. It was good just to have her close. I told her, we really need to arrange it so the next time one of us is in one of those hospital beds, we can take advantage of the things two people can do on it and not be out of commission. She said she'd try to plan her next injury accordingly.

Thanks to everyone who wondered. I appreciate it. Links will be back later!