Part 156 Uplifted!


At week’s end I attend a morning meeting at work, where I am greeted warmly by colleagues, who come up to me one-by-one and offer kind words. I am uplifted by the experience. I return home to rest, and later watch one of my favorite films, the outstanding “Breaker Morant”, based on a true story about moral ambiguity during war.

On Sunday, we attend the contemporary service, led by a bald singer/guitarist and accompanied on vocals by his blonde wife and a terrific young African-American drummer. Church gets hip! By evening, the swelling and pain in my groin has returned, and it’s pill time again.

The following afternoon I meet with Dr. Be-, who performs a scope of my throat and announces that it looks fine. I celebrate with another order of my favorite dinner from Taco Milagro. This time, however, my stomach feels queasy afterward. I rebound enough to drive nearby to my friend Chris’ house as he hosts this month’s book club. I haven’t attended in months, and the guys are patting me on the back and wishing me well. I leave early, and as I make the drive across town to home, my groin almost instantly starts to swell, and by the time I reach my house I am agonizing with pain as the swelling grows. I enter my house retching from nausea, quickly downing two pills. Becah greets me, exhausted from spending time with my ailing dad, whose condition has deteriorated so much that he can’t even take care of his basic needs.

Three days later I am in Dr. Bl-s’ office, where Allison removes my feeding tube. After all these months of plastic appendages poking out of my body, I cannot believe I am free! It is almost anticlimactic – no surgeries, no hospitals, no preparations – it is just out! (But, trust me, it’s not that anticlimactic). It is still after all this time a little unsettling, since I have been so dependent on artificial aids to meet my nutritional needs for so long, and now I must meet them the old fashioned way.

Becah and the girls are with me, and are excited. We go to Olive Garden to celebrate with salad, breadsticks, and fettuccini alfredo with angel hair pasta (the latter always being a food that can be counted on to slide right down). The red onions in the salad taste the best of anything (my taste buds are in the process of changing, I find). We top it off splitting three deserts. Arriving home, we discover the yard men have been at work, and our home looks beautiful.

The next day, Friday, I work my first full day in some time. Becah and the kids head off for the beach after school, but I will hang out at home. That night, I watch another excellent morally ambiguous war movie, “Gallipoli”. Life is getting better.