not going so well here

On Tuesday I geared myself up to drive for the first time since my surgery, successfully cutting back my meds so I'd be safe to drive. On my first attempt to reenter the world, I spent six hours out and about doing things. None of this was too strenuous -- drive Iris down to her appointment, find somewhere in Millbrae to kill time with a good book, meet Iris, drive her to Golden Gate Park, watch Iris at the playground, walk over to Lola's art class and meet my friend Joyce, who'd kindly picked up Lola at school and watched her until her art class, chat in the art studio with my collage teacher and another artist/teacher during the girls' class -- but the end result was huge. By the time I got home, I was in a lot of pain.

Throughout the night the pain kept waking me up, and I was back on pain meds. To make the night even more special, Lola threw up. The Sober Husband cleaned her up, stripped her bed, and installed her in our bed, and I, unable to sleep due to feeling so awful, moved to a chair for the night.

Yesterday was a truly awful day. I felt weak and terrible and in pain, and Lola was watching non-stop "iCarly" videos [in our household, children are not allowed to watch videos before six at night, but a sick child is allowed the special privilege of daytime videos]. At one point I insisted we have silence for a nap. I did manage to microwave some frozen food for us around two o'clock, for our only meal. Across town the Sober Husband, despite pathetic emails from me telling him how bad I felt and to make it a short day, forgot to leave work and to pick up Iris at school. About two hours after she'd expected to get picked up, Iris managed to use a school computer to send him a text message, and he raced across town to get her before the school's extended care closed.

To make it up to Iris that he'd forgotten her, for dinner the Sober Husband gave her a big bowl of fudge cookies. As far as cooking goes, he's over it.

On top of this, my favorite cat, Ray Charles, had been keeping a low profile for days. I thought it was because he was shy around my friend, Kim I, who came to town for a few days to save us all from our post-surgical sloth, but yesterday we discovered that one of his eyes is hugely dilated and won't undilate. He has also lost weight as well. "Don't make a vet appointment before the weekend," begged the Sober Husband. "I can't do it before the weekend."