The Drain/Pain is Gone

Hey, Y'all,
Yesterday morning, bright and early, before dawn, I headed out to Ina Ray's house, and arrived there an hour later at 7 a.m., with high hopes for the removal of the drain in my side when I got to my appointment with the good doctor. When I arrived at Ina's, she showed me her three kittens that she rescued from under her porch a few weeks ago, and they are just adorable. ALMOST made me want to adopt one of them. A few days under our feet and I am sure we would be burying one of them. Two of them are Persians, and the other one is a tiger cat with orange stripes.

Ina and I had a really great trip to Nashville, and with my reading directions from the printed Google map search. We found the clinic with very little difficulty. We had a lot of time to talk about all kinds of things, and actually never ran out of any thing to talk about. We always enjoy our time together, we just don't seem to have enough time. She goes with me each year to the Jonesborough Storytelling Festival in October.

When I got in to the little room to see the doctor, it had a chair that was not very big, but was covered in white vinyl or leather and was adjustable both in the back and had a recliner section for elevating the legs to a comfortable position. As the nurse told me it was my throne, she was pulling the white paper over the back and the seat. I lifted the white paper to look at the seat before I sat down, and said, "Where is the hole?" She said, "What hole?" I said, "Didn't you say it was a throne?" She finally got it and laughed. (my intention, of course).

Anyway, she adjusted the seat to my satisfaction, and left. Enter then, the young intern, a cute red-headed fellow, and he introduced himself and we sat and went over my recent medical history. He seemed to be impressed by my knowledge of all that had gone on with me and I told him that since it is my body involved, I made it my business to be informed. He was also amazed at my detailed chronology of the drain log where I recorded that information. Well, yeah, I admit it, I just charmed the socks off the fellow. My intention, of course.

He left for a while and discussed the report he had just written down with my surgeon and then they both returned within a few minutes. Dr. Wright, the surgeon, told me that he was going to remove the drain, but that if I began having chills, fever, etc. to call his office and let him know, and there was a possibility I would have to have the drain put back in. It was quite painful when he removed the drain, and he apologized for hurting me. He put a piece of gauze and tape over the drain hole and I will be removing it soon and cleaning it with a saline solution.

I am hoping, trusting and praying that I won't have to have it put back in again. He asked me how my eating was going, and I said, slowly. He ordered some lab work to be done before we left and also told me he was going to have a ct scan done with blood work, also in about a month. Then hopefully, he would be able to discharge me from his care.

We left the office and went down to get the labwork done and then left the clinic. We stopped on our way back home at the Cracker Barrel in Crossville, and I had a chicken pot pie for my late lunch. It was good and I ate most of it.

We arrived back in Knoxville about 5 p.m. and I was soon on my way back to New Market. My sister-in-law, Imazo, who had come up here the night before, had supper almost finished when I got home, and we sat down to mashed potatoes, green beans, and pork barbeque, made with some of the boneless pork tenderloin I had cooked on Monday evening. After supper, she cleaned up my kitchen for me, and we soon were on our way back to Knoxville, where I left her with my thanks for helping me so much at her home, and I dropped on down to see my sister-in-law, Mae. We had a good visit and I headed on back home.

This morning, I was able to put on summer shorts (yay) and actually feel comfortable for the first time in two months. How wonderful it was (and is). P.S. The pain is not actually gone yet (drain hole is sore, but it soon will be).

Well, I have to stop and prepare supper. (I had watermelon for lunch, yum) and am having potato cakes, boiled corn, and barbequed pork. This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. More later. Love to you all. Bye for now.