Hotel California

There is a haunting line from the well known Eagle's song, Hotel California, that goes something like this: "You can check-out any time you like......BUT....you can never leave". 
Why does it take soooo long to be discharged from the hospital?  Everyone kept telling me I was being discharged, but there I was hour after hour awaiting the lady with the wheel chair who would carry me to the front door and freedom.  

I've only been in the hospital for multiple days twice in my 64 years, and both times it took hours from the time the doctor said I was "free" to go until I was actually free to go.  My first multiple day stay in a hospital was back in November of 1978 when I was admitted for surgical repair of a ligament in my ankle which had become detached after I survived a 60 foot fall off a cliff while deer hunting.  Not much has changed in the intervening 36 years, and I began to feel like we would not be allowed to leave the hospital Tuesday, but after several hours of impatient waiting the nice lady pushing the ubiquitous wheel chair arrived at room 584-A to take me down a couple of floors to the main entrance of Riverside Community Hospital.  They offer valet parking, which TLE had used when she arrived 4 hours before to pick me up.....initially the young parking valet said it might be as long as 20 minutes before they retrieved our car, but in actuality it took just 4 minutes......always good to lower expectations, and then exceed them almost immediately!

The entrance

I think we finally got home around 3:30 and TLE made some "street tacos" from the left over carne asada from my daughter's engagement party, and they were delicious.  Let's be frank, Hospital food is just not that good, so anything with even a little flavor tastes wonderful!  Hospital food does not just taste like it came out of a box, but like they cooked it without removing it from the box.

Even though it had only been parts of 3 days since I left the coach I still felt quite disoriented for the first hour, or so after we got home, but within an hour or two I was back in the recliner resting, and learning how to get out of it without hurting myself.

We spent the evening watching more Winter Olympics heading off to bed around 11:30.

I want to thank all of those who sent well wishes via the comments section of the blog, or directly to me......via text, or e-mail....it means a lot to me to know so many are out there pulling for me to get well quickly.

Hope to take a walk around the park today, and just enjoy being alive, and on the mend.

Thanks for stopping by!