Friday September 9: On the Mend

We were up early yesterday as Steve needed to be at the hospital by 7:30. It was finally time to get this shoulder taken care of for real. Nice hospital but a long day. The surgery lasted from just before 10 am until 2 pm. Interesting though how they track a patient. He was assigned a number (for privacy) and then on a screen in the waiting area was a list of the surgery patients (by number) and where in the surgical process each was. So I could see from the board when he finally went to recovery and then when he was assigned a room. Kind of like tracking a package from UPS!!

Anyway, they kept him overnight for pain management which I was all for (as was he). The nurse wanted to know if I wanted to spend the night. I just laughed. Nice room though - small sofa and private room. And what a view! I put an arrow in this picture to show the approximate location of the boat. Literally 5 minutes from the hospital parking lot to the parking spot by the boat. How great!

So I arrived this morning about 8 am thinking that they would kick him out pretty quickly ..... meanwhile about 4:30 in the afternoon we were finally able to leave - along with several pieces of equipment. I kept saying - you know we live on a boat, right? 36 feet. With limited space. So we now have a cooling sleeve that has a container of ice water connected to it - way better than trying to keep ice on it. That stays on for another day. We have now the third sling - this one has a reflective strip on it so I guess that means he can jog in it in the dark and still be seen? And a new piece of technology (that I'm told has been around for quite some time): a bone growth stimulator. It uses magnets to align whatever it is in the bone that needs to be aligned so the growth is better. Go figure. So that is 3 hours a day for the next 2 to 3 months - should be interesting.

In the meantime, it continues to rain. And we continue to stay ahead of it for the most part. Harve De Grace (where Steve broke his arm 2 weeks ago) is flooded due to the flooding of the Sesquahanna River. This is a picture of the marina office. Check out the fuel pumps - half flooded. We were on a dock during Irene that would now be about 2 - 3 feet under water. The poles are tall enough that the boats are fine but there would be no way to get off of the boat. Glad to be where we are for sure.