So here I sit, squirreled away in my old bedroom, typing and half asleep and strongly considering an early bedtime. Dad's home from the hospital, which is good, but he also wanted to go to bed at 9pm after not sleeping much last night, and he wanted to keep his door open and a fan blowing out the window in the spare bedroom to keep the air circulating. That's also good, except that it forced me in here and forced the door closed and forced me to be quiet, which immediately caused me to become restless.
Dad improved in record time, going from nauseated and weak and miserable and over-medicated to bored and healthy and hungry and ready to leave in less than a day. Fortunately, the doctor agreed and they released him Friday afternoon befire his restless pacing and constant nurse conversation caused problems. I drove over to the hospital for my second visit of the day, and helped pack up all of his stuff while we waited for a sedan-driving friend of his to arrive. Dad's car is sporty, and fun to drive, as I can well-attest after the past few days, but it's got deep bucket seats, and is not at all the thing for a person fresh off of lower back surgery.
Dad's been talking about getting a new car lately, and hinting about giving or selling me his old one (though it's still newer and much nicer than mine), but he doesn't seem real inclined to go forth and do that immediately, just on account of his back. I had vague thoughts of going with him to get something reasonably fun to drive but without cockpit seats, and then driving his car back up to SF in a few days, but there's no way that's going to happen, with him hoping to be back to driving his own car in a couple of weeks, and planning to rent something until then.
Car bullshit aside, Dad's walking better now than he was before the surgery, and once he's healed up he should be back to playing golf and riding his bike and all sorts of stuff; he's far from being old and decrepit. In the meantime, I'm doing just about everything around here, since the doctor told him not to lift anything heavier than five pounds for several weeks. It's worse than that too, if you can imagine, since it's not just lifting, it's straining in any way. I was going around the house, spraying silicone lubricant on window frames and such today, since leaning over a windowsill and tugging sideways on a heavy sheet of glass actually requires quite a bit of effort, when you think about it. Much more than picking up a stack of plates, for instance.
He's a reasonable man, thankfully, and not one of those old timers who think that everyone should go to bed and get up whenever they do. I can't sleep late here since my room gets bright at dawn and I wake up at 6, doze for 20 minutes, roll over, sleep for half an hour, cover my head and nod off for another fifteen minutes, etc. But at least I've got the option, rather than having some maniacal host who comes storming in to unplug my computer at 10pm and demands I get up and join him as he digs for nightcrawlers at dawn.
