CHAPTER 10
THE COMEBACK TRAIL




Part 137 There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…



Tuesday July 19 I awake to enjoy my first full day home. Although I awoke several times in the night and was dizzy when I got out of bed, and suffered a periodic low grade fever, I slept very well. I still find myself at 5:45 in the morning running to the bathroom to throw up. I take it easy all morning lying in bed, which is now elevated by bricks under the headboard legs so my body will be positioned at an angle to minimize reflux problems.

I have many visitors today. The assistant pastor from our church and her sister come by with food for the family. The home health nurse makes an appearance, saying that my lungs sound great. I have to clean myself up to look presentable for everyone (as Tina Turner said to Mel Gibson in “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome”, “why, you’re just a little raggedy man”). So I call up my hair stylist Shely and ask her if she makes house calls (she will!). My timing is perfect, since she is leaving for Colorado tomorrow. By the time she arrives to cut my hair, though, I have acquired a stabbing pain across my lower rib area. Shely and Becah rush me into the bathroom, and in record time my hair is trimmed. After it is over, Brooke comes in and, seeing hair everywhere, asks if a chicken has been here.

We contact Dr. Bl- by phone. She is perplexed about my swallowing problems, noting that her work was in my upper gastrointestinal area below my vocal cords and therefore should not have affected my upper throat passage for swallowing. Possibly the swelling of my neck from the tracheal intubation is impeding flow of food and liquids. She also suggests that we could have a CT scan of my head to check for possible undetected stroke that could have occurred during her surgery. I ask her when I will be able eat and drink again, but she defers to the speech therapist to make that call. After hanging up, Becah makes an appointment for me on Thursday with a speech therapist at a nearby hospital.

The network of health care professionals expands, and I still am not whole. Panic is starting to set in, and for yet another time I wonder who is in charge around here.