April 29, 2018

Jason had an early morning appointment with Dermatology, so we were asked to be over at the Naval Base Hospital by 06:30 this morning. The coordination was a little thin, as they had a couple of forms we were asked to fill out and bring in, and then when we brought them in they said, "Oh, you don't need those." So I guess it was one of those "just in case" kind of things. Anyway, we found our way over to the clinic and the folks were all there waiting for us. Within about 10 minutes we were in the prep room, and from there into the procedure room in about another 15 minutes. Now, I hope you're noticing that I am saying "we" here, because they invited me to come along, as well as having Gracie (the service dog) there, too.

It was the first time I had been invited to watch the full procedure of lazing the wounds and it was really kind of cool. The reason they wanted me to be there was because I have been dealing with his wound dressings for so long that they consider me the best person to replace the dressings once they were finished. As it was I had brought along all the stuff to do the dressing change. Jason wanted to be sure there wasn't any issues with not having supplies.

Once we were done we headed back home. Jason's recovery was actually pretty quick. Within 30 minutes of being fully sedated he was back up in his wheelchair, heading back to the van. Gracie was a champ as well. I simply placed her in a corner of the small room, to keep her out of the way and she didn't move. There were 8 doctors, 2 nurses and a corpsman, along with the lazier equipment tech and me. With that many feet moving around I wanted to be sure Gracie was comfortable as well as safe.

Shortly after getting Jason back home, and fed (neither of us had eaten anything) I came upstairs to check on my email, and respond to a couple of phone calls. Once that was all done I decided to go ahead and get a bike ride in. Since it was just Jason and I, and Jason was sitting comfortably in his bed (and sleeping), I figured I could get a quick 10 - 12 miler in. That isn't how it worked out.

I took off and road over to Sea World, and found that it is a lot closer than I thought, so I figured I'd just ride a little farther up the road and then turn around. As it turned out I ended up riding all the way over to Anthony Netto's place, and stopped in for a short visit (and rest), and then headed back to the house. This is where the trouble began. I got all the way back to Sea World okay, but then for whatever reason I decided to make a right turn, one intersection too early. I figured I could always just cross back over and that would be okay, except there is no easy cross over and it added another 6 miles to my ride. Final ride turned out to be 18 miles, and my legs were feeling it. Funny thing is that Jason was just waking up when I came in, so he didn't know I was gone for so long.

Tomorrow we get back into the swing of his regular schedule of appointments, and I expect that it will be a bit more of a relaxed day. The procedure of today only causes a little tenderness with Jason, so it isn't too much to recover from. They also did a tiny skin "harvest", behind his left ear, that will be used to help with a different procedure, about three months from now. You will find out more on that as we go along. Thank you, for your continued prayers and support - take care and stay positive.