Special Bonus Edition!!

Special Update! Lois @ Home!!

• Lois had an uneventful night. Went to sleep fairly easily & slept thru the night fairly well--according to her--w/o the need for pain medication, which had been prescribed by her surgeon.
• She "slept-in" this morning, which means that she was still sleeping @ 7:30a (CST), when I left the room for the breakfast bar.
• She texted me with a request for coffee soon after 8:00a. Given her rough day yesterday, which included a bad headache most of the day, which we self-diagnosed as a symptom of CDD *, which also included other unpleasant side effects **, her request via text was pretty cute. ***
• She had "hotel breakfast bar" French toast & syrup, coffee, & more coffee--all w/o incident.
• We checked out of the hotel before 10:30a & were home before 2:00.
• She has been resting in bed ever since. Her eye is giving her minimal discomfort, which is a pleasant surprise, given that she had a lot of residual discomfort following the biopsy.
• No more headache, to the best of my knowledge [at least I haven't heard a complaint for several hours, no more nausea [which I can neither confirm nor deny that she experienced]; just a general feeling of great fatigue.
• She was actually awake throughout both procedures yesterday. They offered her the option of a general anesthesia for the closing procedure, but she chose to just go w/the lidocaine. That's what the surgeon preferred anyway, since he wanted her to respond to his commands, like, "Look up!" "Look to the right!" "One step back!" "Cha cha, ya'll." [I made up that last part.]
• She has refused all pain medication.
• She has a pretty impressive eye patch on her right eye, & it must stay untouched until she goes back to Omaha on TUE 11/10. She can't get it wet, which means the only way to wash her hair is "salon-style." ****
• He was able to close her wound w/o "harvesting" tissue from her upper eyelid. He did have to do a little more "excising" of tissue on her lower eyelid, which required more stitches. Some of those stitches will comes out on Tuesday. Some will stay in longer.
• She's finding it very difficult to read w/just her left eye in operation. Her glasses would work, but they won't fit when she's wearing her eye patch, which is 24/7. We stopped at Wal-mart when we got into town & got her a magnifying glass. No, I am not kidding. 
• She will stay home from school tomorrow.
• The wheelchair ride [for Lois] down to the car was accessorized. Special features included a plastic bucket, paper towels, & a wash rag. The wash rag went unused, so we got a "free" linen as part of the total medical-care package.
• To celebrate our return home, I picked up one of two options for supper--her choice, of course:  a frozen California Pizza Kitchen brand pizza {thin crust w/fire-roasted vegetables} OR frozen Chinese {chicken pot stickers & mini-vegetable spring rolls.} *****

* Caffeine deficit disorder

** Which, out of respect  for Lois' privacy, I've decided to let her choose to share those specific side effects at her discretion.

*** I'll paraphrase. "Bring me coffee. Bring it now! Or I'll track you down!! And I won't be responsible for what I might do with this lamp stand!!!"

**** As a certified guy, I'm not 100% sure what "salon-style" means. Lois nodded, knowingly. I kept my mouth shut. Ask me about "saLOON-style."

***** For the record, she went w/the pizza. Unfortunately, as I was getting it ready for the oven, I discovered the word 'garlic' prominently listed among the ingredient. I can't handle garlic, so Lois is sitting enjoying pizza while we watch 'Burn Notice' on Netflix. So far I've had toast. That's all. ******

****** This post is all about Lois, not me, so I digress.

Related hotel adventures

We were not too happy last night when we returned to the hotel. I talked to the front desk clerk when we left the hotel at 6:40a, yesterday morning (11/4). I explained that we would be back by 9:00a, then leave again, probably around 11:00a, so we'd prefer maid service after 11:00. He said OK, but his facial expression, tone of voice, & body language all said, "Huh? What?" I'm not trying to be mean-spirited, but he couldn't have acted more disinterested.

We got back to the hotel and--wait for it, wait for it--our room hadn't received any attention.

• Bed not made. [Not a big deal. There was a "Save the Planet" tag in the room, and as you know, I slavishly do whatever I can in my small sphere of influence to save Mother Earth. What I'm trying to say is this:  If you don't have the maids make your bed, your linens don't get changed, which means less hot water & detergent gets used, which means saving the planet! Duh!]
• No clean towels. [Despite my eager desire to save the planet by reusing towels, we had used all the towels AND left them on the floor. This is the universal code used in Save the Planet hotels for "We are jerks & want new towels even if it means losing the planet. We secretly hate this planet."
• No fresh soap & shampoo. [Some of you know that I "collect" hotel soap, shampoo & conditioner. I have not had to buy my own soap for over 10 years. It's a little harder to keep up w/shampoo & conditioner, but I digress. In any case, when I stay more than one night in a hotel, I assume that I will get fresh soap, shampoo & conditioner. I encourage this service by putting the partially used shampoo & conditioner in my toiletries' bag &--if there are two bars of soap--saving one. Well, no maid service meant no extra, extra soap & shampoo.]
• No fresh coffee pellets. [I had used both caffeinated pellets {or pouches or whatever you call them, now that more hotels have switched to single-cup makers} in between Lois' procedures yesterday while we killed time at the hotel. Again, not a big deal, because there was coffee in the breakfast room this morning, & it was better than the coffee in the room anyway, but it's the principle of the thing.]

I had to talk to the front-desk clerk last night to request clean towels & fresh soap & shampoo. [I decided that fresh coffee & a made bed were unnecessary luxuries.] Not only did he send me back to the room with a double-load of towels & wash rags, he came back minutes later with an envelope that contained 8 bars of soap and 4 sets of shampoo & conditioner. Lois doesn't use hotel products, so I stood to gain a bonanza. This morning when we were packing I told Lois that I wasn't sure that in good conscience I could take back that many condiments. A long conversation ensued.

LOIS:  Aren't you going to pack the extra soap, shampoo, & conditioner?

ME:  I don't know. My conscience might not let me.

LOIS:  Why not? 

ME:  Okay. I'll take it.

Kudos to the hotel, however, for their breakfast selections, which included biscuits & gravy [always at the top of my list], waffles [You don't always find biscuits & gravy at hotel breakfast bars, but waffles are ALWAYS to be found--must be some kind of government regulation], * cheese-omelette-like things w/Canadian bacon on the side, the usual assortment of bread, bagels, croissants, muffins, & French toast, PLUS--and this was a new one for me--a pancake machine. You pushed the button & watched a video display, demonstrating how your pancakes were being made on a conveyor belt inside the machine. Quite a novelty, although the waffles were of higher quality than the pancakes.
* Obviously the breakfast waffle lobby is much, much more powerful than the breakfast biscuits & gravy lobby.