Dear Kids, 

Most of you have heard that my surgery went really well last Monday morning. If only my recovery were going really well!  But you can’t expect everything.  All my complications are totally normal, but I didn’t ask enough questions beforehand.  Good thing, because I still would have gone ahead; I just would have been more fearful.  If my writing is incoherent, it’s because I’m taking very large (but legal) amounts of oxycodone.  So my stomach is upset all the time.  I hallucinate and talk to people who aren’t really there.  I slur when I talk.  My fingers don’t want to type.  But at least I’m escaping the very worst of the pain.  

They had me up walking just a couple of hours after the surgery.  I guess it can’t hurt my new hip, which is metal and plastic. I’m supposed to walk as much as I can stand every day, so I won’t get fluid in my lungs, which can lead to pneumonia.  So I came home from the hospital with crutches, and Dad borrowed a walker for me from Elk Meadows.  I’m pretty good with both of them now.  

Allen called me yesterday afternoon to check in.  He’s still suffering from the bad effects of Covid, which is pretty unusual for a guy his age.  He coughs all the time, but it doesn’t help his lungs that much.  I asked him about hallucinations, and he said when he had his appendix out on his mission, he remembers seeing waffles on the ceiling.   He gets sick remembering them.  He gave me some good advice about getting groceries, since Dad and I are both quarantined.  I can order what we need from Walmart in Heber and Dad can just go pick them up. I can probably do the same with Food Town.  It seems like everybody has curbside pickup now.  Allen also explained the difference between quarantining and isolation.  Dad and I are quarantined, which means there’s a perimeter around us which nobody is supposed to cross.  Isolation is when you actually have Covid and you’re completely, well, isolated from the rest of the world.  That would be lots worse, because Dad and I couldn’t even be in the same room together.  You’d go crazy! At least we can watch movies together and play with the cats.

Sonia’s idea of play is jumping up from the floor and landing in my lap, right on my incision. It hurts like crazy.  The wound is about 8 inches long and runs down the front of my leg.  Sonia hates my tablet, and she hates me reading off it, so I lay it over the wound before I doze off.  So she jumps onto Dad’s lap instead, but it isn’t as much fun because he doesn’t yell in pain.    

I wish we could have visitors, but maybe you’ll show up in my hallucinations.  I’ll remember and tell you what you said.

Lots of love, Mom