August 30

Good morning!

Okay, to all the peeps who sent me 'welcome home' e-mails, texts, and FB messages, thank you AND you were right, I was wrong. A couple of you commented how much better it was going to feel to sleep in my own bed again. I wasn't so sure. I'm still leaking and uncomfortable. The bladder thing still exists (although I ordered a porta potty for next to the bed and Jamie helped me get it set up last night. Just in case.) And now I'm on a mattress where I can't find the exact comfortable incline electrically for my neck and breathing. And......


Screw all that. It was FANTASTIC!!

Baby doll and I crashed around 11:30 last night. I was up at 2:15 and actually made it downstairs to the bathroom without an incident. I then took some pain meds and decided to take a breather on the couch. The next thing I know, I woke up in a very uncomfortable position around 4:30 am and took myself back up to bed. Upon getting up there I discovered that the 'mister' that I need to wear at night had run out of sterile water. This could be a problem. The medical supply place only sent me (8) liters of the stuff and I've blown through 3/4 of a bottle in one night. I'm going to have to do some research. I know the tech guy told me that he had the mister set up at a 3.........something. I can't remember what UOM he used. Pounds maybe? He said that's what they are usually set up for and it's a UOM that dictates how much moisture is being pushed into the air coming through the tube. I have to think that might be too high. Plus I'm feeling a little, I don't know, congested? wet? swampy? this morning in my lungs. Maybe baby doll will call them for me and find out how to adjust it. The tech guy said it's definitely adjustable.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. I only have (8) liters of sterile water and I blew through almost an entire one in one night. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to wear this damn mister off and on during the day as much as possible too. Although I added that to the list of questions for doc. I can't remember what instruction I was given about it's use AND I can't remember the timing of it. Do I have to wear this thing at night for the rest of my life or just the next few months until I heal and get fitted for the valve and filter? Something tells me it's a life thing but I hate not being sure about stuff, so I'll ask.

I should also comment that between the air conditioner running to keep the room cool and the pump running to keep the mister going, walking into the bedroom sounds like walking into an industrial factory. Baby doll claims that people usually pay a lot of money to get stellar white noise like that. I was skeptical but we both seemed to sleep like logs for the most part so maybe he's on to something.

I fell back to sleep next to the man of my dreams. Which I would just like to say is a torture all on its own. I am NOT going to be up for any adult bedroom activities for a while but seeing him in my bedroom with his shirt off.......well........I had better heal pretty damn quick, that's all I have to say. At 7:15 I woke up once again and I could tell it wasn't a maybe wake up, it was okay, I'm up for the day wake up. It felt magical to sleep in that late!

My stupid human story this morning. When I was up in the middle of the night I really wanted to turn a light on in the bedroom but I didn't want to wake up baby doll. I decided that lighting a candle would do the trick. It didn't. I ended up draping a towel over the lamp on my side of the bed and then created a pillow barrier in front of baby doll's face so that he'd be protected from the ambient light. But I digress. This morning since I decided I was up for the day I went to blow the candle out. Yeah. You can imagine how well that worked. I forgot! I puckered my lips and absolutely nothing happened! Actually, I expelled air, just 4-5 inches lower than where I had expected to expel air from. Ha! I started to lift my chin to see if I could blow it out with my stoma, I imagine I can, but I was attacked by a coughing fit and didn't want to wake the man so I exited the bedroom in a hurry. If he doesn't blow it out when he wakes up, I'm going to go up and play with it.

I had just been wondering about that whole issue yesterday too. I can pucker my lips, kind of. The right half of my face isn't moving so well which is why Michelle wants me doing the exercises 5-10 times a day. But I can't get any kind of suction to make an actual kiss happen. That's going to be a serious bummer if my kissing days are over. I decided yesterday that today I'm going to start a log book for Michelle. I'm going to record when I exercise, take notes of anything of interest, and record any questions I come up with for her. She's going to be tickled about it, I can already tell you. She said that she usually just gets to practice the swallowing therapy of her expertise, not the speech so she's blown away about working with me. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone so excited about their job. Have I mentioned I love her?

I have to go through and make a list of action items today to start working on. I'm supposed to have someone call our local emergency services sooner rather than later to let them know that there's a "neck breather" at this residence. And yeah, that's exactly how the paperwork stated it. In quotes. "Neck breather". Sheesh. Anyway, it helps the medical personnel know that about someone because if they try performing CPR on my in the usual manner, well, I'm screwed.

Okay, breakfast just completed. My hot man should be rousting from bed. I have no idea if I have anything in the house to even feed him. I'll have to go look. I'll probably check back in with all of you later today as I won't be able to contain my excitement about day 2 of freedom and healing! Ciao!