I lay awake most of the night, Margie sleeps in, cooks eggs and potatoes, after five days on clear liquid I eat solid food
Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 12:48PM 
I only wanted morning to come swiftly and to bring eggs and potatoes with it, but the night passed ever so slowly. A bit after midnight, to make it more bearable and hopefully to lull myself to sleep, I plugged my soft headphones into my phone, waged a short debate within as to whether to listen to Jimi Hendrix or Mozart and then settled on Hendrix - The Ultimate Experience.
I hoped it would put me to sleep, but had a feeling it wouldn't. If not, then I would listen to Mozart afterward.
First, an amazing Hendrix intro and short guitar riff and then his beautiful voice, "There must be some kind of way out of way out of here, said the joker to the thief. There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief."
In an instant, I was completely absorbed in the music. Many times during this recovery process I have gone to bed absorbed in the music and then hours later have woken up to complete silence, my headphones still on my ears, never having reached the end of the album in a conscious state.
This time, I remained absorbed as Hendrix moved through song after song until finally he landed on number 20, "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?" and ended it there.
I then switched to Mozart, Requiem in D Minor. Entranced, I listened. I pondered how much Hendrix and Mozart held in common - both geniuses blessed or perhaps cursed with gifts possessed by no one else. Both lived hard and reckless, died young and are now listened to by multitudes 24 hours a day.
At one particular moment, a black and white picture appeared in my mind. It is one I took long ago in the Bakersfield, California, house of my sister Mary Ann. It shows my late, paralyzed, brother Ron, sitting in his wheelchair, a rapturous look upon his face as Mary Ann plays classical piano for him. A chill passed over me, as if the spirit of my dead brother had suddenly swept by. He loved Mozart. In fact... no, I will hold this fact for the book. I cannot amply explain it here.
Requiem ended with me still awake. I now had less than two hours until my alarm would ring and it would be time to take my 4:00 AM antibiotics pill.
I switched from music to the morning BBC news but it was all pre-Olympics pablum, so I turned it off and decided just to lay there in quiet. I thought about all my incomplete books and felt desperate to complete them. I kept thinking about morning, when I could get up, hobble out to the living room and eat some potatoes and eggs.
Then, suddenly, I awoke to my alarm and took my 4:00 AM pill. It felt like I had been asleep for just minutes, but who knows? It could have been minutes. It could have been an hour.
I then lay there, waiting for my next alarm alert to go off at 8:00 so I could take a different antibiotics pill. I kept thinking about the eggs and potatoes. I hoped that Margie would be up when that alarm went off, because she planned to cook the breakfast and I wanted my first solid food to be eggs, the way she cooks them.
And then, once again, my alarm woke me. Again, I did not know if I had been asleep for minutes or maybe a couple of hours. I took my 8:00 AM pill, went through the painful, but not as painful as it was not so long ago, process of getting out of bed and stepped out into the hallway.
Except for the click of Jim's claws on the bamboo floor of the hallway, all was quiet. I peeked into the master bedroom and saw Margie and Lynxton sleeping side by side on the king-size bed, Lynx's cradle board lying empty a short distance from them. This meant Lynx had woken up during the wee hours and had demanded Margie's attention before he would go back to sleep again. It could be quite awhile yet before Margie would be up to fix breakfast.
I figured the best way to endure the wait would be to sleep, and so went back to bed. It didn't work. I got back up and went into the kitchen to make coffee, but could find no filters.
I thought about cooking the eggs and potatoes myself - I figured I was strong enough to do it - but for all these days I have been imagining myself eating scrambled eggs the way Margie cooks them, not the way I do.
And then... I heard Lynxton cry. He was awake! I went into the bedroom and found them both lying on the bed. Lynxton was happy now. Soon, they got up. Margie sat Lynxton in his makeshift laundry basket-play pen, where he quickly settled down into contented happiness.
Margie cooked eggs and potatoes for all three of us. I took my first bite of solid food in five days. It was exquisite! I knew I had to be careful, so I ate only about balf of what you see on the plate, plus a few spoonfuls of yogurt, a few sips of coffee and a small glass of apple juice.
Reader Comments (9)
Hooray for solid food!
Yay!
Such good news. Congratulations that you are now back in the land of solid foods.
So the questions now are:
How well is your breakfast staying down where it's supposed to be, and is it finding a happy home in your much-troubled digestive system?
:)
Woot, for the solid food! As for the sleeplessness, I don't know about you, but I found that Norcos or oxycontin keeps me tired and awake. I had to switch to vicodin after my knee surgery.
Congratulations! One step at a time; one bite at a time... Good Luck in your recovery!
Happy days! Those eggs & potatoes DO look delicious. I'm so happy you haven't had any problems with the solid food and that you're getting to enjoy the "real" eating again. Hoping even more that the antibiotics are doing their work too and you'll soon be in tip top shape. Bless Jim & his walks with you. Cats are so awesome. Take care - get well very, very soon.
I tried to post this morning and it wouldn't go thru. The internet has been screwed up all day. Bill, the eggs and apple juice produces lots of gas! I'd stick to toast/jelly and tea and yogurt for a while yet. Maybe some cream of wheat with skim milk. You don't want to get a lot of gas and blow out those new stitches. Didn't they tell you about gassy food? Just trying to save you some pain and tears. You and Jim keep up those walks to get that bowel moving again. So glad you are getting better. Love Lynx peaking over the clothes basket!!!
Yes! Food after such an ordeal as yours has got to be good! Onward to a smoothie: banana, orange juice, yogurt and protein powder. Sort of like an orange Julius but better.