90%, of Recovery is Half Mental

It was nice sleeping in my own bed last night. I slept fairly well and got about six hours of sleep. I think Jeff (our Border Collie if you are unfamiliar) is a little lonely. Just like me, Cha Cha is his favorite person. Jeff slept in the bed with me. He's not too bad. Occasionally, he'd lie across my chest and I would pet him and then turn on my side and he'd lie back down.

No MATTer what our homes are: house, apartment, car, refrigerator box, mansion, boat, airport, hotel, hospital... there is no place like home; L. Frank Baum knew what he was talking about when he made that the main theme of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Incidentally, he wrote the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the same city that Cha Cha is right now. He wrote the story in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. There have been a lot of great and/or well-known writers who have come out of the Chicagoland area (Baum was not "from" Chicago but lived here when he wrote one of the most famous stories of all time): Edgar Rice Burroughs, Matt In The Middle, Roger Ebert, Michael Crichton, John Chancellor, Ann Landers, Carl Sandburg, Gary Gygax, Ernest Hemingway, Mike Royko, Ben Hecht Ray Bradbury, Larry Gelbart...

The best part of home last night was the shower I took before bed. It is funny how we can take the simple things for granted. That is why sometimes people take me for granted I think.

I spoke (actually the more intimate form of communication - texted) Cha Cha and the nurses tell her that the roads are very icy. It is rainy (moisture) and a bit foggy (moisture) and cold so it makes sense that there would be ice on the roads. Fortunately, to get to Cha Cha I am mainly on 290/88 and then take The Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue) all the way to her hospital (save for getting to the tollway and the two blocks from Michigan Avenue to the hospital. The tollway is almost always one of the first things salted so I will be fine. I will probably wait and leave here at 0830 or so. We are still 90% certain she will be getting out of the hospital today. We will have to go back sometime later within the week for her to get her stent out. We already told them that want to go back to Northwestern to get that done. We don't really trust our horse doctors much anymore.

The Magnificent Mile when I left The Magnificent Cha Cha last night

I am pretty sure that I will take tonight off work again (I am approved to take off work via my "continuous FMLA" to help Cha Cha at home and, as it turns out I fear, for me to get better too) and maybe the rest of the month. Once she started feeling better it was like someone slapped me in the face with a shovel; I have flu-like symptoms and am exhausted. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. We can go non-stop but, once the fight-or-flight instinct is no longer a requirement, we eventually crash. Before you start thinking, "you need to eat" as I have heard quite a bit over the past couple of weeks, I just had two mozzarella cheese sticks and some cracked pepper turkey breast. Jeff helped me a little.

Last night, as I left the hospital for the parking garage across the skyway bridge deal, I wondered how much the parking would be. The previous night it had been reduced from $52 to $24 because I was visiting a patient and got the parking ticket validated or whatever they did to it. The $52 amount is charged if you are parked between seven and 24 hours. So, since I was parked for about 34 hours I was curious how bad they would rape me. It was $48. So, just to park we have paid $68 and whatever I have to pay today. That seems kind of like ambulance chasing to me (pun intended).

I still have lots of notes from my travels but I just felt like clearing my mind here this morning. Those notes will come when Cha Cha is home (hopefully very, very soon). I am gonna take another shower and head east. Thanks a lot for continuing to think about Cha Cha - she still needs out positive energy. Even though the big, bad parts appear to be over for now she still has lots of healing and a few more procedures to endure.You have been a HUGE part in her recovery. Ninety percent of recovery is half mental. Sincerely, thank you all of you for everything. MITM (out and hopefully home with Cha Cha very soon) TA!