The Crimson Loogie

My lung surgery went well and I’m back home under the even more watchful eye of my boo Jude. My anxiety about the whole shebang (not a medical term) was spot-on. We were due to drive to Victoria last Tuesday, so had hoped we wouldn’t get any more snow. No way. Sunday we awakened to another 30 cm (12″). I was lying in bed fretting about how we were going to get up our driveway when I heard the beautiful clunking of a road grader. Our neighbour Jay saved our frosty butt yet again.

We skated on the weather until Tuesday morning, when we picked up our friend Dee and headed south on Highway 19, which was not only bare but dry. We found our airbnb and settled in. Jude took me to the hospital the next morning as Dee watched our dogs.

There is plenty to find wrong with the Canadian health system, but it was really clicking that day. I was wheeled into the operating room right on schedule. I tried to think of something witty to say to the surgical team as the anesthesia kicked in, but all I could come up with was “good luck”.

As I awoke in the recovery room I had a fleeting panic because so much staff was bustling around me talking about all they had to do. Then I realized that there were several other patients they were tending to. I was taken up to my room, which I had to share only with Charlie from Nanaimo. The nursing staff was exemplary and the food quite edible. I had a meal of sweet and sour pork that was so good that I sent my compliments to the cooks.

Pain management went well, too. When I first got there, I felt like Barry Bonds had whacked me in the ribs with a ball bat, but that was quickly addressed with laudanum, an opium tincture. The nurses soon had me on breathing exercises, as measured by a plastic gizmo requiring me to keep a pingo -pong ball in mid-air. They told me that I’d know I was recovering when I coughed up a bloody chunk of phlegm. Hence, The Crimson Loogie.

After two days in recovery they pulled out a tube that I assume they used to guide the camera through my lung. It was about 12 mm (half-inch) wide and 40 cm (16 inches) long. Jude and Dee picked me up and we drove home straightaway, with one stop at a Popeye’s Chicken. We arrived home to gleefully discover that our new off-grid energy system had run like a champ unattended.

I was wrung out the next day. The day after, all I could do was notify my two kids and my four spiritual siblings, then settle into a Northern Exposure/Star Trek: Voyager/The Librarians marathon. I’m on light duty for about four weeks. I can’t lift anything heavier than ten pounds. I hope the Popeye’s family pack didn’t weigh more than that.