I feel like something is missing....

Well...the hard part is over. Yay!

I'm not going to sugar coat it. The surgery was difficult and painful. The morphine pump was 67.83% useless.  The expected 2-3 days in the hospital was extended to 5 days because of minor complications.  It sucked.

But as of yesterday, I am home!  I spent the first few days home from the hospital at my parents house because I still couldn't move well, still had 16 metal staples across my gut and was still having issues. After they took out the staples and glued/steri-stripped me up, I could move around better and was ready to move me and Spence back to our own house.  Mom and Dad's house was fine-- but the comforts of home are better.

I have another week of strict bed rest.  Time to heal-- then I can start increasing my activity. And before anyone asks-- yes I am behaving and doing (AND NOT DOING!) everything the doctor says.

Spencer is being great.  He was standoffish the day I came home from the hospital, but now he is back to being my loving, helpful little boy.  He is doing everything he can to help take care of the house, pets and his mommy while I can't lift or bend.  What a sweetie!

Thanks for all the messages, cards, emails, texts, flowers, visits, food, phonecalls-- it is nice to be surrounded by such loving and supportive friends and family.

And now that I actually feel like I have made some progress into "healing", I have some retrospect:

• Hospitals are awful.  You can't sleep.  You can't rest.  They are there for monitoring your vitals and dispensing medications-- sleep is what you do when you get home.
• The "grabby stick" is a life saver!
• I can wear a new name brand outfit fully accessorized and barely anyone notices.  But rock out some heart emblazoned PJs from the clearance rack of Wal-Mart and you get a thousand compliments.  Hmmpf!
• My son colors pictures for me every day to make me feel better.  And they do.
• Will actually ENJOYED hospital food and napping with me. He's so easy going - I love that man.
• I never understood Mom and Dad's bird-watching obsession until I stayed there a few days to convalesce. Every morning I would have coffee by the big bay window in the kitchen and watch all the birds feed in the "bird house village" my Dad created. Sometimes there are 6 or 7 different types of birds eating together.  It was very relaxing.  I even got my camera out for a few shots!