Clark’s surgery went well! You can watch a video of me talking about organ donation (I KNOW SO FUNNY AND ROMANTIC AHAHA) on my Facebook page.
He’s home now, resting. We were at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary yesterday and this morning. Had an 8am appointment after his surgery ended yesterday around 3pm. It’s been a long couple of days, and this morning, at 6am, we were two minutes into the trip when Clark accidentally dumped 40 ounces of water in my lap.
I have never screamed “WHAT THE FLICK?” (but not the word flick) so hard and so many times as my lap turned into Lake Erie. He apologized profusely, I swung into a parking lot, jumped out of the driver’s seat and you heard a loud SPLASH from my a$$ when I stood on the asphalt.
Forty ounces is a LOT OF WATER.
When you live in the Boston suburbs, there’s a particular kind of traffic math one must engage in. From our home, we can make it to the hospital in about an hour if we are on I-495 by 6:10am. Not 6:13. Not 6:11.
6:10. If you leave even ONE MINUTE LATER, you add nearly an hour to the trip. It’s wild.
So… we couldn’t go back. Clark begged me to go home and change, but we were delayed already by my stopping in the parking lot, and both of us putting together a solution comprised of a blanket, a roll of paper towels, and a raincoat.
My SOCKS AND SHOES were soaked through. One half of my chest was soaked through to the bra. And once we got on the road, we were delayed by 25 minutes. I’m not kidding about Boston commuter “traffic math.”
I drove to Boston sitting on layers of paper towels, a raincoat underneath, with paper towels shoved IN MY SHORTS to wick the water out of my UNDERWEAR.
By the time we got to the MGH parking garage, I was done. Sooooooo done. But poor Clark’s done, too - done with his eyes being cut open, done with the cancer and the corneal dysfunction and the pre-op and the post-op.
I am one of those people who reacts IMMEDIATELY to things when I’m around people I’m comfortable with, so I explode then calm down fast. Thirty years of therapy has helped, and these days, I get over it quickly. Clark made a mistake. He didn’t put the water bottle in the right place on the console, and left it without a lid.
And water evaporates. In time, this will be a funny story (it’s totally going in a book). Right now, it’s just an added “what the flick?” to our endless “flicks” in our life.
(If you’re wondering what I do around people I’m not comfortable with, it depends, but I generally hold it in and suffer, fawn/people please, or cry).
Clark is a model patient, and the corneal fellow who performed part of the procedure praised him for actually complying with post-op instructions, informing him the membrane is attaching already (which is good).
Meanwhile, Clark spends the next 6 days flat on his back unless going to the bathroom or eating/drinking. He and our middle kid spent most of Monday night trying to create a “screen” suspended above Clark’s bed, so he can work on a computer and watch tv.
Behold their engineering masterpiece:
Let me dissect what you’re seeing:
4 tall floor lamps with a white sheet over them
rolled-up towels on top of the lamps to hold the sheet in place
clothesline to secure the lamps
a single bed mattress on the floor, elevated slightly with a wedge
a milk crate with a projector tv in it, pointed up
Clark is one of those guys who takes the LEAST amount of time possible off work for illness. He took TWO DAYS off, yesterday and today. He’s determined to work tomorrow, because otherwise "I’d be bored.”
This is the geekiest solution to boredom LOL. But I love him for it, because it works (and for the record, I recommended the floor lamp suspension idea, especially after he suggested HANGING A MONITOR FROM THE CEILING OVER HIS HEAD WITH BUNGEE CORDS).
Floor lamps it is.
Except… he had to go and up the ante.
“Look at my solution! I can do video calls now!” he just said eagerly.
The solution:
Yes, that is an iPad in a purple case suspended by clothesline above my husband’s HEAD. Someone send me an Advil, please. Not for him.
For me.
Next week, we return to MEEI and hopefully, the transplant does what it needs to do and he is fine. Also, unless the iPad falls on his eye and an ER trip is in order…
MOST people would take their sick time/PTO at work and recover. MY husband does this. Y’all ever wonder where I get my ideas for my bizarre situations in my books, well… Exhibit A, right here, folks.
I’m married to it.
Now this transplant is behind us, and I get back to editing One Night (Band) Stand:
Coming September 30:
Going back to “flick”, a blast from the past:
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