Overnights seem to be the hardest part of this gig so far. I’m on about five different medications which are all competing with each other on how to make me feel the most stupid. As a result, they are messing with my sleep patterns and I’m up and down the whole night. They’ve got saline going in my arm and a slow drip of some kind of pain med through the epidural. When I hit the button for that stuff it feels like someone is spritzing ice water down my back and then things get groovy. But the side effect of that one is how it messes with my vision; my eyes jump around a lot and I can’t focus up close on anything. Last night I asked for something to help me sleep so they gave me some benadryl and that put me down for about two hours before I woke up again.

I want them to show me how to get cleaned up because I’m getting pretty ripe. I think they’ve been waiting until all of the major tubes come out  (the one I haven’t talked about  is the drain in my midsection, which has been collecting less and less but will not feel good coming out).

Yesterday I did two laps around the ward at 1 with Jen and another two at about 6 after she’d left. I wasn’t worried about passing out like I was on the first day and that was encouraging. They want me up and moving so that my GI tract will start functioning again; apparently when I start passing gas my intestines are waking back up. Today I did three laps in one shot, and I’m going to get up and do another three in a few minutes. I’ve never wished for farts before, but I am now, because I’m getting hungry.