Post Apocalyptic Pastels - Friday 10/26/2007

Another shot over the neighbor's house. Braveheart says they're getting gorgeous sunsets from the smoky skies down in Los Angeles proper. We're getting these soft dawns.

In all the hubbub of going down to the hospital in Panorama City again yesterday for my post-op appointment, I forgot to take a photograph. Harumph. Ah, the stories I could tell. The queasiness I could invoke....

I will just say now that I am through it, the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Panorama City doesn't engender a lot of confidence by its level of cleanliness. The patients bathroom in the pre-op area was FILTHY and I'm going to let them know what a bad impression that makes. Really, overflowing wastebasket, absolutely dirty floor. Shocking.

And the operating room... About the last thing I thought after I scootched onto the table was that this looked like a set from a hospital movie set in the sixties. They're building a whole new hospital right there, but the old facilities are really pretty barren and primitive looking.

I was crying. The nurse asked what was wrong.

"Just scared." I said.

She told me to think of something nice, so I imagined a beach scene. Running into the waves with Tomasina and Braveheart and Marian just a couple of weeks ago, feeling so alive.

While I was out, I dreamed that the surgeon was there on the beach with us, in full surgery garb. He buried my gall bladder in the sand, just below the high tide line.


Perhaps TMI regarding gall bladder surgery recovery. Stop here if you wish. (This means you, Dix.)

The disconnect between what the doc says the after effects are and what I learned on 43Things (and seems to be the truth) is fairly broad. He kept saying, "no known post-operation symptoms" and all foods are okay "as tolerated." This is apparently a very subtle real world code for stay close to a bathroom once you start eating again.

Zero appetite. Eating fresh fruits, crackers, and broth.