Although I am sure Charlie will enjoy being home--sleeping in his own bed, eating home-cooked food and reading in a comfortable living room--he is apprehensive about the discharge tomorrow. The visiting nurse will come only three times a week, and that is the only planned contact with a health professional until next Tuesday. His confidence in my nursing skills has not risen, and I will be in charge of the drain twice a day. (My duties actually relate more to those of a plumber than a nurse.) Despite the problems with hospital life, there is something comforting about knowing that a trained person is only a few steps away.
An aching back is an additional contributor to a less than cheery Charlie. The fellow has ordered an ultrasound, just to make sure the problem is musculoskeletal. The nurse practitioner says everyone complains about the uncomfortable beds here at the hospital, so we all suppose the back problems relate to the bed and to moving about without full use of the abdominal muscles.
With luck, I will be making a more upbeat post from home tomorrow. As I see it, we have some inconveniences, some things with which we must deal, but the health picture is much better than it was four days ago, and monumentally better than four months ago.
