A Strange Season

This has been an odd summer. As Kay and I walked in the cool of the summer night around ten o’clock, the breeze just ruffling the leaves so that their silver undersides glimmered dimly in the street lights, we marveled at just how little heat there has been this summer. We’ve been blessed, though, for the heat would have added to the discomfort she has felt recovering from her surgery. In the cool, she is progressing apace, and looks to be healing fully. The hole from the JP drain is closed and is almost healed, and her scar looks great. There are still a few issues that seem to be left over, however, from the stress her body has been through. She’s still complaining of an odd taste in the mouth, but I think that will go away once the effect of the antibiotics wears off and her system is allowed to return to normal. Because of her temperature being lower than normal for the past few days, we are not really worried about a resurgent infection, but the doctors have suggested that she may have a bit of anemia, so they have scheduled a blood test for tomorrow. And she has had some problems with digestion. We have introduced new foods to her system gradually, a few fruits here, a couple of seeds or nuts there, but after a particularly rich delayed anniversary dinner (we hit five years in early July), including escargots, Alaskan king crab, and rice pudding accompanied by the ever-perilous raspberry, she awoke at 2:00 AM with stomach pains. Sitting up helped to ease them and allowed her to sleep eventually, and nothing more occurred. Tonight she is a bit uncomfortable, too. I hope that some Tums antacid will help her to sleep.

Meanwhile, I have become beleaguered as well. Yesterday, lying on the bed in the hotel room we ended up scoring for free on the night of our anniversary celebration, I felt the room begin to spin. Only once or twice did it go round, and then it was over, but it was alarming. Rising, I realized that I didn’t feel quite right in the head, and I haven’t since. My head spins seem to be related to the motion of getting up or lying down, and it’s more common when I am lying down. Luckily, my mother is office manager for a neurologist. When I called him after hours yesterday, having mentioned these odd symptoms to my mother late in the day and getting her imprimatur to call her boss, he dashed away my apologies, saying something like, “No, you are not allowed to apologize – you are a member of an honorable family that are good friends of mine. You are welcome to call.” When I explained my symptoms and answered his diagnostic questions, he said I was likely suffering from something in my inner ear, not my brain, but that I should get an MRI anyway, just to be safe. So off I go tomorrow, to relieve my wife’s (and my own) lingering fears that I might have a brain tumor or a stroke, that she will not be left alone at the end of this strange cool summer that we have spent fearing for her, not for me.