Sunday, March 15, 2015

Home is where your stuff is?

Leslie is homesick
We moved a lot and my mom frequently said, "Home is where your stuff is." She possesses real skill at making our stuff look like a home in about a week.  Curtains hung, silver polished and the first dinner party scheduled...our house was transformed.

I've never really been a "stuff" person, but we did bring our coffee maker and Organic Italian roast coffee, because life is just too short to go one day without the best coffee experience possible.  Therefore, we gave it our best shot to make Kahler Inn and Suites feel as homey as possible: to no avail.

As you know, I was told to lie flat all weekend.  Prescribed rest is a very good thing right now.  Generally, I despise it, but after those first two days, it hasn't been half bad (Ok, I'm lying).  Post-procedure instructions for the "spinal fluid draw" typically only require a 24 hour period of "trying not to bend or lift anything."  Because the dura hasn't historically healed well for me, I was instructed to, "lie flat as much as possible, not bend, don't reach and don't lift" until Monday morning. I can assure you, I have followed these directions perfectly because I am terrified of what I call "stand up headaches." I have the "lie down headaches" every night after about 5 hours (if I lay flat, but at home I have an adjustable bed that affords me a few extra hours now and then: thank God), so I wasn't seeking the: "trapped in bed with spinal fluid leaking out of my back" headache.

I'm definitely not a "Praise God when it's good" kind of person.  I am "Praise God all the time" kind of person. Tonight, I am praising God I have not had that awful headache experience.  I doubt God micro-manages my life so much that He had a hand in the direct outcome of this procedure, but I do believe He had a hand in bringing me to David, bringing me to Louisiana, bringing me to a random rheumatologist who knew someone at Mayo Clinic who could get me in, and therefore: getting me here. I praise Him for being the greatest Director of all eternity.

I sort of wish He would micro-manage tomorrow, because I have high hopes for the outcome.  Tomorrow's agenda begins at 7:00 a.m. with the Department of Ophthalmology. I'll be with them through 9:00 a.m for testing including a visual acuity check and the rest of the time is spent doing "eye photography." Then we'll go to Clinical Neurophysiology for a "Sensory Evoked Potential" test, where they glue electrodes to my head to determine how my brain is communicating with the rest of me.  At 11:00 I'll be getting a CT scan of my head and neck. I'm pretty sure they have more CT scans of my head than there are cats to scan.

Ok - let's all pause for a moment and appreciate how hilarious that previous sentence was.  Go ahead..get it out of your system.

I'd like to say that we're off until 2:30 when we have a follow up consultation with the Cardiologist, but we'll actually be stalking the scheduling associates at the Department of Ophthalmology/Cornea team and the Section of Speech Pathology, so we can reschedule appointments they made for me on March 19th and March 26th.  I'm VERY sure we cannot stay in this hotel that long.  Despite the lovely kitchenette and view of downtown Rochester, we both long for our view of Lake Claiborne.  Besides, I'm actually scheduled for surgery to have my spinal cord stimulator removed (there at LSU Hospital) on March 26th, so we will be back at the lake by then.  We were hoping to make a stop in Austin on the way home, but if we have to stay through Thursday, we'll have to skip my friend-fix in Austin.

These details must be boring you to tears, but to tell the truth, it's a whole lot easier to focus on getting home rather than blowing my mind while I consider the little cornea dystrophy disaster.   Indeed, "There is no place like home" (L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).  Leslie is looking "homeward bound" too.

Deuteronomy 20:6 
"Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it."



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