Thanksgiving at Cleveland Clinic

Thanksgiving Day at Cleveland Clinic was pretty quiet, fewer patients and visitors. The parking lot at the Guest House was only about half full. There was a skeleton crew on duty when I left at 10 this evening.

Last night, Wednesday night, Larry’s second night after surgery was a tough one. We heard today from the nurses and doctors this is not unusual as the body begins to wake up and react to all the insults over the last 24 hours. He was not able to stay on top of the pain, so I went back over to the hospital about 4 a.m. The Clinic Guesthouse is just across the street from the main entrance.

To top it off, his roommate had many issues which brought quite a number of personnel to the room during the night. Eventually this led to the roommate being transferred to a different floor this morning. The nurse aide came in this morning and jokingly said “hear you had a perfect night last night.” Everyone at Cleveland Clinic seem to go out of their way to be pleasant and listen to what you have to say. Nice! So for the time being, Larry has a “private” room.

The orthopedic resident told Larry it is expected that he would be weak after 6 hours of surgery. The resident was happy with how Larry's surgery looked. Physical therapy this morning -- Larry was still very weak and struggled to stand with a walker. Work with the Occupational Therapist this afternoon went better, able to get up from the edge of the bed and stand with some help from the therapist. Succeeded again later with Judy’s help. Each effort makes it a bit easier.

Just as a measure of how he is feeling, he wasn't even curious about the Black Friday ads in the enormous Cleveland paper.

We both sneaked in several naps during the day. We are not pushing the docs to let Larry rush home, trusting their judgment. Just making the 5 hour drive home will be a challenge, followed by a lot of hard work.

Judy