Over and Done

Second post of the day.

I'm home from my surgery and recovering. To say that I am thankful would be an understatement. I did not look forward to having a second surgery in less than a year.

I did all the surgical prep as asked, including getting a COVID-19 test. I am negative, no surprise since I have been sheltering at home (er, and the barn) since March 17.

The hernia was massive - the size of a softball according to my surgeon. (No wonder it was uncomfortable to snap my jeans!) And when he tried to push it back in, he couldn't, and discovered a second hernia was blocking the repair. That needed to be fixed, too, so I ended up getting a two for one deal.

 I got the horsey leg wraps again - they really are a way of preventing blood clots by squeezing your legs to encourage the blood to circulate...

 ... but in so many ways I feel like I am getting leg wraps when they put those on me.

My surgeon said that this surgery would be much more painful than the pancreatectomy/splenectomy I had last August. Honestly, I feel the hospital did a terrific job of keeping my pain under control and it has not been too bad.

Enough so that I was glad that I had brought my laptop and could get online in between naps. (I must've take six to eight naps a day!)

Tim was great about sending texts and photos of Abby. That daily dose of the barn and outside world made a big difference to me. While the hospital staff and care was top notch...

 ... I was in a hospital in downtown Indianapolis, and so the view out my window reflected that. No greenery in sight.

 Late Thursday afternoon I was told I could go home. While I waited for Craig to make the drive from West Lafayette to Indy, I got all my tubes out, got rid of the heart monitor, was tutored in how to empty my drains, and then I packed my things and got dressed.

Those drains! I have never gone home with them in past surgeries, so this is a first. I'd brought a dress so that there would be no waistband to press on my incisions, but the drains and their tubing underneath it made the dress stick out in unusual places. Even when clipped to my undergarments, the tubes looped outward. And if I didn't clip them up, they dangled below the hemline. Oh well! In the grand scheme of things, dangling drains or a bulging dress are no big deal.

Since I'd had such good care, from Dora, my daily cleaning lady, to the techs, to the nurses, food service, and beyond, I left a final note just before Craig arrived to wheel me out. 

Even Ashanti, my favorite nurse from last August, made a special trip up to my floor (twice!) to come see me! She is now assigned to another floor in the hospital but heard I was back. Seeing her again was just the best!

Being reunited with Craig was wonderful; he had had to leave after I was settled in my room and was not allowed to come back until it was time to go home. (COVID-19 exposure.) The long drive home went well and, even though we had been FaceTiming daily, it was good to catch up in person.

Pepper is really glad to have me home again. Teacher Daughter Lisa kept her while Craig traveled to Indianapolis and back, and when we stopped by to pick her up, she was so happy we even let her up on the couch - something  she is not allowed to do - but that also made it easier for me to cuddle her.

It's a good thing I placed a pillow on my belly to protect my incision and drains - she could not seem to get close enough!

She was so happy, she flipped onto her back, pushed off me, (OOF!!) and asked for Craig and me to give her a belly rub. It's hard to see since she is so dark, but her head is hanging over the edge of the couch. Silly girl! (Times like these that make it hard to believe she was a Seeing Eye Dog. No dignity! Hah!)

I'm home now and doing well in my recovery. Loni found out that I have been on an all liquid diet for a week already and will continue to be so until for at least the next four days, so she made me some potato cheese soup that she blended smooth. It was delicious and so filling! I slept eleven hours after drinking it.

Now that the surgery is over and successful, I feel like I can move forward and that summer is here at last.  It's time to work on judging the Happy Trails photo show, get my entries into the Breakables show, and sew some cowboy shirts for Pony Pal Cambria who will be mutton busting in a few weeks and asked if I could make her a real cowgirl shirt.

All is well.

A Bucket List Sight

Note: The last couple of posts were pre-written and scheduled to post while I was in the hospital having my surgery. This is the last of them. I am home now and recovering. Daily posting should resume tomorrow or the next day depending on how I am feeling. And I can't wait to go see Abby again! 

For several years I have seen this tall tree in the woods off the road that I travel to get to the barn. I've wondered what those objects could be that are in its branches.

It's about a quarter mile off the road, and so this close up from my cell phone is blurry, but you can still see something odd about the tree.

Earlier this spring, and knowing that we love birds, Tim invited Craig and me to come walk through the woods behind his home to see a Great Blue Heron rookery that was located in the trees. I put two and two together and realized that that rookery is what I had been seeing from the road.

What an opportunity! Great Blue Herons are my favorite bird, and I knew that they nested in colonies, but I had no idea that there was a colony so close to my home. Craig and I jumped at the chance and met Tim and Loni for a hike back through the woods.

 Craig, Tim, and Loni.

 It was quite a journey through the woods and then alongside a creek. The ground was very uneven, but the rough hike was worth the sight of those birds. It turned out that there was more than one tree in the rookery. This was the first tree that we encountered. I count four or five nests in it.

The main tree is the one I had been watching from the road. If you look closely, you can see some adults perched next to their nests. We could occasionally see chicks poking their heads up out of the nests, especially when an adult arrived with food.

 The adults were constantly flying in with food and then leaving to go get more. A constant chatter from the birds could be heard the entire time we observed them.

 Loni and me.

Tim at the far end of the meadow looking at the last tree with nests. All in all, I counted four trees with 30 plus nests scattered throughout them. My guess is that there are more; we just could not see them all from our vantage point.

I will remember that day for the rest of my life.