Relaxing time

The weekend shapes up very differently to the days before.  It’s quite a bit calmer.  There are fewer doctors around and less activity.  When the morning rounds are done, the patients that don’t require constant care are on their own.  Freed of Fred and all outward frills of a patient beside the wristband and my shameful sweatpants, I can go wherever I please and do what I like.

It’s important to be back for lunch at half past eleven and the inspection that comes with it.  Blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, oxygen saturation.  All good, no pain, no worries.  After lunch I rest for half an hour to help with digestion and read or listen to podcasts.  Afterwards, I write or read more.  Visitors arrive after 1 pm.  The entire afternoon is to my own disposal, with no obligations and nothing to do.  I could almost get used to it.

I enjoy it the most because this afternoon, the bag covering the hole into my abdomen was removed.  The hole had closed by itself, healed.  Only a small patch of gauze reminds me that I was carrying a bottle with red-orange liquid with me not too long ago.  At the same time, the tape covering the long vertical cut on my belly was replaced on my express demand.

When this was done a day earlier, I had lounged as if on a Caribbean cruise, my upper body slightly raised by the magic of the adjustable hospital bed.  For this decadence I paid dearly because the tape followed the shape of my body in this position, and held it there.  For a day, I walked like the semicolon that I am.

Now I’m a normal person enjoying two relaxing days off.  I’m normal in all respects besides the microscopic cancer cells that still suffuse my belly.  They are still there, they are growing, and they are evil.  I don’t forget about them, but since I can’t do anything about them right now, I don’t think about them either.  They will be dealt with later.