Back among the living
Part V

We had some excitement around here yesterday morning.

I was sitting at my desk at about 9:30 when a flatbed truck loaded with roofing shingles pulled up and parked in front of the house. I didn't think much about it, but then the driver and a helper got out of the truck and just kind of stood in the street, like they were waiting for something. Then they came up into the yard and started gesturing toward our roof.

Now, we just had our roof completely replaced, not a month ago. We hadn't contracted for any work to be done, but since we live in a multi-family dwelling, we didn't know for sure that someone else hadn't, although it would have been pretty strange. I went up to Bob's office and said, "What's going on outside?" thinking maybe he'd been watching them, too.

He said he didn't know, and pulled up the blinds, and we stood there and watched them for a few minutes as they discussed something, still motioning up toward our roof. The driver got back in the truck and backed into our driveway (actually the driveway of our next-door neighbor, but obviously the driveway to our building; I was thinking maybe he was just going to turn around and take off down the street or something, but no, he backed in, parked, and then started lowering the boom to start loading shingles on the roof.

At this point Bob got the paperwork from our roofing contractor and called him, and basically asked, "What's going on??" As he talked on the phone, he walked outside to see what the name was on the truck, told the guy on the phone, who said they didn't work for him, and he had no idea what they were doing there. Then Bob started waving at the guy on the roof, shouting, over the noise of the truck, "No! Wrong address! We have a brand-new roof! Just put on!"

Man. I was afraid that neither of the guys from the truck spoke English, and I was hoping that maybe the guy on the other end of the phone did, and could translate, but it apparently wasn't a language difficulty, just difficulty in hearing over the noise. The guy on the roof spoke English, and came down before they'd thrown anything onto the roof. He looked at his paperwork and said that this was the address they'd given him, but Bob told him that we obviously didn't need a new roof, we hadn't contracted with anyone to do any roof work, and they needed to check with their office.

When Bob came back in, I said, "You know, there's a house with this same number a block over on 116th Terrace." (Ours is 116th Street.) So he got in his van and drove over there, and sure enough, the place was swarming with guys tearing off the roof. So he came back and told the guys at our house, who were still sitting in the truck trying to figure out what to do. They were very grateful to Bob, since if they had nailed the bundles to our roof, they would have ended up paying to replace a brand-new roof.

I was also grateful to Bob, and just grateful that we were home. What a surprise it would have been to come home at night and find our brand-new roof torn off!

I remembered a couple of things that I forgot earlier. One was that I saw the surgeon before the operation. I remember saying to him at my last appointment, "Well, I guess the next time I see you I'll be asleep," and he said no, that he would see me before the surgery, which I was glad of. He didn't say much, just asked me if I had any questions or anything I needed to tell him, which I didn't, really, and after he was gone Bob said that he had his "game face on," meaning that he was all business, ready to go to work, not in a chatty mood.

And the other thing was that Bob's friend Phil came to see me right after I got into my room. He's a doctor, and I'm sure Bob was glad to have him show up and take a look at me and say that I was looking good; and I was pleased to see him, too--he'd driven thirty miles from Lawrence to check in on me!

Continued from Tuesday:

The food thing turned out to be kind of a fiasco. When they brought me my "breakfast"--jello, chicken broth, and orange juice--there was a ticket on the tray with someone else's name on it.

The food looked innocuous enough, but I wasn't eating anything that had been ordered for someone else until I checked on it. So I rang the nurse, and she came in and said that the name on the ticket was the name of the woman who had been in that room before, and she said something about just not cancelling that order, or maybe it was too soon for an order to be in specifically for me. I didn't really understand what she was saying, but basically she was saying that I should just eat it and not worry about it.

So I did.

Then the doctor came in and said that once I'd had some real food, I could leave, so we started making preparations. The nurse came in and started unhooking me from things; the respiratory specialist had been earlier and told me I could come off the oxygen, and the nurse removed my IV. She left for a minute and said she'd be back to remove the catheter; at that point Bob said he thought he'd leave for a little while and give me some privacy, which wasn't necessary, but sweet of him.

When the nurse came back she was surprised he was gone, and I told her he was just giving us some privacy. She said, "Is that your husband," and I said he was, and she said, "I've totally given up on any privacy from my family!" I guess she thought maybe he was just a friend, or a brother or something; I thought it was funny. Bob isn't really squeamish about medical procedures, it wasn't that. I think he just thought I'd be more comfortable if he wasn't there watching the catheter get yanked out of me.

I wasn't sure how much it would hurt (it didn't hurt at all, surprisingly), so since I didn't know that, I probably didn't really want him there to see me squirm, but aside from that, I've pretty much given up any pretense of modesty when it comes to hospitals and doctors. I think lying barechested while doctors and technicians surrounded me during the breast biopsy did it.

And there's just really not even any pretense at modesty in a hospital. It's almost like you go back to a baby-like state, allowing anyone who shows up to do whatever they like to you. Kind of weird, but not altogether unpleasant. Kind of nice to give up control for awhile, I guess.

Once I was unhooked from everything, I dug around in my overnight bag and found my toothpaste and toothbrush and went in the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Heaven! My mouth was so dry from not having anything to drink for what felt like days, and from the oxygen, that it really made me feel worlds better to brush my teeth. I also brushed my hair, and felt more or less human again.

Then Bob came back, and his eyes lit up to see me on my feet again. He is so sweet. He said, "There's my girl! It's so good to see you up!" He didn't like seeing me in that bed hooked up to everything, looking, I'm sure, fragile and sick. I asked him if he thought I ought to go ahead and get dressed, and he said he thought I should probably wait and see what happened. So I got my knitting out--I'd brought a sock with me--and knitted a little bit, and waited for lunch.

It took awhile, so I had plenty of time to knit. Earlier, the night before, I had been thinking that I had been WAY over-optimistic to bring anything with me, either a book or the knitting. I hadn't felt like doing either, and frankly, couldn't imagine doing either. But a few hours made a big difference. I still didn't feel great, but I no longer felt like I was going to die.

When the orderly brought me my lunch, it looked very similar to breakfast--cranberry juice this time, and the Jello was lemon rather than orange, but it was still obviously a "clear liquids" diet. And it still had the other woman's name on it. Bob said that rather than have me ring for the nurse again, he was going to take care of it, and he left the room with the meal ticket in his hand. And he went straight to the top, flagging down a supervisor in the hall.

Before long, she came in, wafting apologies and carrying a tray that smelled like actual food. Maybe not the kind of actual food that I would have preferred, but food. Roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, more Jello. And a piece of lemon meringue pie.

To be continued . . .