Limbo Land

John had a biopsy on Monday morning. We’d driven in at the crack to get to the hospital early enough for him to be the 2nd one in the queue for a surgery. What a champion he is. He sailed through the whole process since aside from having fallen and blacked out the morning of the 10th, he has no other obvious aliments to complain about. Except for a sore shoulder, which might just heal by itself slowly. So, Jake and I actually visited him within a couple of hours of him having his head drilled open. The hospital in Christchurch is adjacent to the Avon River and Botanic Gardens where we parked, a good long walk from the building where John was. The swans were posing as usual and so was I, to capture the way I felt that my mate seemed to have some sort of superhuman endurance. Actually, he just wants to get back into his life now. But being on anti-seizure meds does slow him down and make him drowsy. So, that means no driving for him except as my passenger, which is hard for both of us. His scrutiny is usually accurate if I’ve gone over the line or haven’t gone close enough to it also. So, both of us are on our toes but it will be wonderful to have him as the chauffeur again. Then I can critique him for missing a signal or going too fast around a corner or my favorite for his following too close to the car in front of us.

What an odd event this is… putting our normal lives on hold, to hurry up and wait to see what’s going on in his head. But no matter what the results are, we have different strategies planned to heal him. But this waiting period is exhausting. Although he’s still relatively active, getting dressed every day, taking light walks and sitting outside on sunny days, I am scurrying around doing most of the chores and all of the cooking. I’ve decided to call myself Cinderlolla. There is no time for resting on my laurels or Laurelees or Lollys either. I am the person we both depend on to prepare wonderful meals, keep the house tidy and pick endless flowers for inside vases to cheer us both. But I’d rather be busy than endlessly wondering about when we’ll learn what we’re dealing with… and I try to keep John’s mood up too since a side effect of his medication is sudden irritability.

In the meantime, our animals are thriving and our gardens are messy. The pathways are needing a good spring washing and some windows too look like that might be the thing to do now. Lots of little bits of dusty material is falling from the birch trees in droves every minute and the windy days ensure that there are plenty of dried twigs to start the fires with too. New lambs are being born right outside our front room that we can see from inside the cottage easily. That’s our major entertainment, especially when they prance and chase each other every afternoon. So, we keep our hopes high for a workable outcome and we still enjoy our days here at home after his 2nd hospital stay in 2 weeks, with another on the way soon if this is an infection. In that case, he’ll be hooked up to receive antibiotics through an IV for a week there and then remain on that program from home for another month or more with a visiting nurse coming as often as needed. If it is something else, we will deal with it when we find out exactly what it is. But in either case, life goes on at the House of Cluck-Cluck, God willing.