Today I’m procedure plus seven, and glad to be on this side of the OR. Surgery is never a fun or pretty thing, and even the most rational action (take care of this now, before it gets worse) seems crazy to your self-protective mind (but it’ll hurt!).

I am very fortunate that my surgeon has a sense of humor and a skillful hand, though when the visiting nurse saw the incision and said, “Wow, he’s good. That’s no Rhode Island incision,” I will confess I was of two minds. One, sad that I was not typical of the Ocean State in the way of a mahogany chair, and two, scornful and proud because of course I went to Boston where they can tell left from right, thank you.

I’m still not quite ready to read (I work my way through the Times, but I don’t know that it sticks), and I am definitely not ready to sew.

There’s a lot of time spent on physical therapy, reminding muscles that they’re just fine, and can wake up now. In the hospital, you are provided with a trapeze to lift your leg and encouraged to move it about. While oddly old-fashioned, and seemingly borrowed from Foyle’s War, it does work. I can’t slide my leg back-and-forth on the bed, but I can move if someone holds it up just a little bit. (The socks they give you are color coded: yellow is fall risk. I called them duckling feet, and the nurses were entertained.)

The other big focus is meals. In the hospital, you call and order your meal, and it is the only place I know where you can order Lemon Ice for breakfast with fruit and coffee, and where the kitchen will call and wake you up to make sure you place a dinner request before it’s too late.

Time becomes a strange thing: often, it’s measured in the blocks between doses of painkillers, and I find my sense of “early” and “late” are altered. The world gets small, focused as it is on basic needs, and small is how it will stay for a while. Every day is better, and this time around so much better than the last, but it will still be a while before I can really read and write and sew and think.

Thanks to everyone for all of your comments last week! They were very nice to read when I got my phone back on Tuesday, but replying was beyond my ken last week.

The next week or two are going to be cat-like for me: meals, naps, exercise, and today, perhaps a trip to the porch. Fortunately, I have experts here to provide advice. Mr Whiskers understands the importance of meals, and fully appreciated the fragrant salad placed before him on Mother’s Day.

Fortunately, he left the flowers unmolested, and moved on to staring out the window at the birds who sounded like they were saying very rude things about him.