Update: Second full day after hospital discharge

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First, the good news.

We are now ensconced in a Redwood City home owned by one of Meda’s sisters. We arrived here around 2 pm Sunday.

It’s a nice house, hidden on a flag lot down a long driveway. Certainly a very nice place to recuperate for a few weeks.

And I do appear to be bouncing back from the surgery. I’m off pain meds except Tylenol without a problem. I walked the long driveway out to the street this morning, at least a few hundred feet each way. Will repeat later this afternoon.

The discharge from the drain that is still inserted at the surgery site has nearly stopped.

And I’m awake and upright for much more of the day, a continuing process.

The breakfast challenge

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I’m up early on my first full day after getting out of the UCSF adult cancer hospital late Saturday afternoon. Meda, as well as her sister and husband are, as far as I can tell, still asleep in their beds.

I want to take my first round of pills, but decided not to do that on an empty stomach. I should eat first. So I scrounged. Remember that I’m on a gruel diet, more properly referred to as a pureed diet. Everything is to be ground into a fine mush. Everything.

To bypass the need for a blender this morning, I went for already soft and blended ingredients.

I found a large coffee cup. Added close to a cup of yogurt, then a scoop of protein powder. Then, unable to figure out where the silverware is hiding, I pulled a spoon out of last night’s clean dishes and put a spoonful of smooth peanut butter into the mix. Still scrounging, I found honey and added a bit to the mix. I failed to get blender instructions last night, or I would have added half a banana. And I’m not at all sure what liquid to cut the whole concoction with. Milk would be perfect, but this household is into alternatives to dairy, milk, soy, etc. So I decided to just stay with the thick version.

My concoction is full of protein and calories, tastes okay, and I think it will be a fine breakfast. Then I’ll turn to the pills. Two different things for pain management, an antibiotic, and my regular blood pressure medication. Taking pills is not my favorite exercise, so I’m not looking forward to this.

My breakfast isn’t perfect, and not really by the book, but it doesn’t seem like a bad start.

And it is a beautiful California morning with clear blue sky and lots of sun. Of course, it’s San Francisco, so it’s also cold (by our standards at least) with a chilly wind.

Moving on!

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They are cutting me loose from the hospital. Saturday afternoon. The official record finally caught up with the medical staff “rumor.” I’m dressed and ready, but waiting on discharge papers, instructions, meds, and my ride.

Another Feline Friday on Saturday

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Not a regular Feline Friday photo gallery, since I’m still in a bed in the University of California San Francisco adult cancer hospital until late today or tomorrow.

But a few photos and a short tale about Bessie.

Bessie is calico #2. She joined our household a little over a year after Ms. Kali. Unlike our other three cats, she apparently didn’t spend much if any time living outdoors in a cat colony. She appears to have been someone’s cat that was dumped off at the top of Aiea Heights, but quickly spotted and pulled out by one of the colony caretakers who saw her potential for adoption.

We were the ones who adopted her. In hindsight, the problem is that she was never socialized into the mysterious ways of cat behavior learned in the colony by our other cats. So she has been picked on by the others, primarily Kinikini and Kali.

During the times of day they are out and about the house, Bessie has to tread very carefully because at any moment she might be chased under a chair or back into her spot on the top of storage shelves in our pantry/storeroom. But when Kali and Kinikini are putting in their required 18 hours of sleep each day, Bessie emerges and can enjoy being the temporary queen of the living room.

But there are limits. She rarely ventures into the hallway leading to our bedroom, and since her earliest days, does not voluntarily enter our bedroom. Kinikini and Kali both made it clear that the bedroom, and especially our bed, was their nonnegotiable territory. Claws flashed and fur flew, and Bessie learned the lesson.

Interestingly, things get turned around when we leave the house, and the cats, in the hands of our cat sitter. Kinikini hides and is rarely seen. Kali is standoffish at best. But Ms. Bessie is as social as can be, and quickly takes over the social spaces opened up when Kini and Kali retreat into the shadows.

Both Meda and I were shocked this week to receive a photo of Bessie sitting on our bed. Not simply exploring the bedroom, but sitting on our bed!

So there are bright spots to our absence and the resulting shakeup of feline social relations.

Bessie enjoying our bed!