Chris Daughtry –  Im Going Home

Here we go!  Getting to go home from the hospital while dealing with icy road conditions at night.  Ray kept in contact by cell phone with Lisa all day, our neighbor/friend, who reported to Ray how the roads were, especially our steep hill in our subdivision.  I laid in the hospital bed thinking how the heck am I going to get out of bed, get dressed, let alone make it home with icy roads, put that seat belt on, get out of the truck, and walk into the house with ice on the sidewalk.  After all, schools cancelled classes because of bad road conditions.  It has only been 28 hours after my surgery and I have to head home.

In the hospital, Ray helped me sit up in bed.  It took effort and about 5 minutes to get myself situated sitting up with Ray’s help.  Then the hospital gown came off and Ray started reaching in my overnight bag for my clothes.  He started to pull out my size D bra and I thought to myself, REALLY?  Haha.  I didn’t need a bra anymore.  I was all bandaged up with a white dressing around my chest.  Ray helped me dress into sweat pants, a zipped up sweatshirt, my coat, and Uggs.  Took about 20 minutes to get dressed, slowly.  He had to do everything like pull up my sweatpants, zip up my sweatshirt, put on my socks, etc.  It was difficult for me to do this by myself.

Then the nurse came in with the wheelchair and off I went down the hallway.  I was near the nurse’s station, waiting for the elevator, and about 4 nurses were discussing about the roads being bad in some areas and were wondering how they were going to manage getting home.  It was about 10:00pm.  The nurses waved bye to me and wished me well.

While Ray was getting the truck, the nurse wheeled me to the front door of the hospital.  Looking through the windows to the outside, it was super windy and looked blustery cold outside.  The nurse pointed toward the tree which was out front of the hospital building.  The tree had a thin coat of ice and with the wind moving the tree branches, the tree glistened.  The tree was beautiful, but then I thought, ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY for letting me leave the hospital under these type of conditions?

Ray pulled up  to the front door of the hospital and the nurse wheeled me to the vehicle door.  The poor nurse was freezing because she didn’t have her coat on.  Ray jumped out of the truck and it took both the nurse and Ray to get me into the truck as it was sitting up a bit higher than a car.  Putting the seat belt on was a nightmare!  Thank goodness for my friend, Pam, who made me wonderful pillows.  I used a pillow between my body and the seat belt for comfort.

We were off, on our way home.  I thought Ray slid a little on the road, but he kept reassuring me the roads were okay.  All the drivers were going slower than normal, like 20 miles an hour slower than the norm.  We had to stop off at Walgreen’s on the way home to pick up the new anti-nausea dissolving tablets.  Gee, more pills to take.

I don’t remember much on the way home, only to the part were we enter our subdivision to go up the hill.  I was WIDE AWAKE AND ALERT for that experience!  Lisa, our neighbor and dear friend, text Ray stating the hill was still okay to drive up.  We drove down Beef Bend and then turned to enter our subdivision.  Yep, I was wide awake and alert as we started to climb up the hill.  I was pretty much FREAKING OUT!  As soon as we pulled into our court and reached our driveway, I could have kissed the ground when I got out of the truck.  Ray put down some cardboard on the driveway near my side of the truck door, just in case the spot was slippery when I slid out of the truck.  Ray unlatched the seat belt and I was able to swing around and get out of that vehicle.  I immediately started walking toward the front door, with both my arms up toward my chest area, without waiting for Ray to help me.  I was a nervous wreck from the drive home and just wanted to get into the house, NOW!  I had to wait for Ray to unlock the front door.  As I walked into the house, I was trying to figure out where I was going to plant myself down for a few days.  I thought of the family room, but said forget it.  I started climbing the staircase.  Once I reached the top of the staircase, I looked into our bedroom.  I saw our bed and said NO WAY am I getting in that bed.  I looked at the newly purchased recliner and thought how the heck am I going to get into it let alone, OUT OF IT.  I went down the hallway and looked into the guest room, but my dad and Mitzi were coming for a visit in 2 days from Arizona, so that wasn’t going to work for me.  I looked at Kelsey’s twin bed in her room.  I thought about laying in her bed, but decided not to, knowing she was coming home in 3 days to visit from college.  She was finishing up with her finals.  I continued on into the bonus room and there was the brown couch.  YES!  BINGO!  This is the place to plant myself down for a while.

I sat down on the couch and Ray grabbed some pillows and was able to get me adjusted to a comfort level I could tolerate.  He gave me my bottled water and everything I needed and placed all the items on the coffee table along with a bell to ring if I needed anything.  I was all set and fell asleep.  What an ordeal!  I think I aged a few years from the ride home.  lol.