Thank you all, who have commented here with good wishes for Steve's recovery or sent us emails. I owe all of you replies, and apologize for being slow to thank you personally.
Steve's doing fine, it appears, following his surgery. The surgery was to correct some longstanding eye problems that have grown worse recently. Fortunately, the pain during recuperation has been minimal. There was initially the need to recover from the full-body anesthesia, which he has never handled well. And now there's the constant irritation of the sutures and of some kind of wire device installed around both eyes inside the lid, to hold the repaired lids in place, we think. That's temporary, and will be removed next week.
Steve is, as always, angelic in dealing with his suffering. My biggest nursing task is to keep him from trying to do things to assist me, when he can hardly see through his swollen eyelids and should be resting and letting himself be waited on. Have I said I'm the world's worst nurse, too, so there's that for him to deal with as he deals with the aftermath of the surgery?
Where Steve is patient, long-suffering, forbearing, always thinking of others, I'm the opposite, and my nursing skills are hampered by my tendency to identify with the patient and panic about the blood, bruises, aches, and pains I should be treating, instead. So we've spent the week with Steve resting and me worrying and trying ineffectually to be a skilled nurse, and also resting a bit, too, as he rests.
One of the effects of slowing down can be the discovery that one has been burning the candle at both ends, and I find I'm discovering that these days, as I seek to muster energy to think of the needs of someone I love dearly, who deserves all the attention I can give him. And this is why I'm slow to blog until we're beyond this hump period.
We're both grateful, indeed, for your expressions of concern and of hope for Steve's speedy recovery.
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