Overwhelmed

Dad's surgery almost overwhelmed me. [This is an overwhelmed self-portrait, huh? What with the King (Elvis) on Velvet and the traffic that it looks like I'm in the middle of.] He took it in stride. Except in the recovery room they said he was 'in pain' and agitated. I spoke with a nurse on the phone and then she let me go into the recovery room to 'help wake him up' as his breathing was shallow and she had given him oxygen to get the levels up. She had given him Dilaudid. I ask if he was in pain. She said his eye hurt and then he had a headache. He said 'not too much.'

"He hasn't had anything to eat or drink since seven last night." I said. It was six o'clock in the evening.

"Would you like something to drink?" She asked him. She named some juice choices. Water. Coffee.

"Jack Daniels." he joked.

"He's joking with you. He's OK."

He swilled the apple juice but was less interested in a saltine. We got him up in a chair and got him coffee and more juice. They had an anesthesiologist look at him. Finally they let him go home. It was nearly eight. He had me stop at the grocery store and get him some take out fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Yeah, why not.

He seemed OK at home and I stayed a good while with him waiting to see if he could get back to a routine with his big eye patch. He was really sleepy. But that's one more surgery he survived and the surgeon said there was lots of scarring and it was hard to get the retina to take shape again but it did.

I was worn out when I got home. Still, I tried to look over my e-mail and respond to stuff and think what all I needed to take care of. And I treated myself to a Picon Bière, a drink I love that consists of pouring a light lager over a French liqueur called Picon that you cannot buy in the U.S. any longer. I watched a movie I'd recorded: "Six Degrees of Separation." I really liked it. My kind of movie, but I'd never seen it. I read a little in the newspaper. And so it goes. I stayed up too late. But today I have a tennis game, I take my dad to the doctor for patch removal and exam and I have a social event. In between maybe I'll get some of the things on my 'to do' list done. But I don't feel so overwhelmed. Hospitals are like that. Did I catch up on my reading at least? Not so much. I read The Austin Chronicle and my book about Krakatoa a bit and read the Monday Arts section from The New York Times and worked the puzzle therein. I tried to read my book in the recovery room with the beeping machines and me saying to my dad "Breathe deeply, Pop." "Deep Breath, Daddy." He looked old and fragile in the recovery room. (I was not amused when the gal who came to get me in the gift shop said she knew I was his daughter because I looked just like him.)