I’ve been here coming up on two weeks now.  I had a fever for exactly two hours.  Besides that little window, I have been in great shape.  I walk the corridors, I get my own food, I entertain myself.  I am the model prisoner patient.

Being alone with nothing to do but read, pray, relax and take things at my own pace has always been a secret fantasy of mine (probably for most people) and I can say, it was wonderful for the first three hours. (Intersting, this is exactly how my father feels about retirement).

I am largely stuck in my small white room, probably about 15ft X 20ft (5m x 6m). The television doesn’t work, which isn’t that big a deal, but it would help the fill a few of the 16+ hours a day that I sit here.  There is a strict No Visitor policy in effect here in the unit, undoubtedly for my own good, but not being unable to receive visitors, not even my wife wears on me. (May comes every few days and I’ll meet her outside the unit. We both wear masks and we exchange a bag of clean clothes for a bag of dirty laundry.  Sometimes she’ll bring me a snack and we’ll sneak off to the other end of the hall to eat it in peace, sometimes we just walk the hall in front of the unit and talk)

Annonsørinnhold

Gir glød og motvirker aldringstegn: Få 2 for 1 + unik rabattkode på LED-lysmaske

And as with any extended stay or cruise, the meny begins to repeats itself.  The first ten days are OK – but then it slowly sinks in that you are just going around in a never ending circle of turkey meatballs, steamed cod and baked chicken- served with potatoes and some rich sauce at every meal. Wonderful if you’re a eighty year old Norwegian, but if you’re forty plus American who still has his tastebuds, you long for more.

I am ready to go home. But I am also grateful that I am here.  I know I am blessed to have access to so many resources while I’m sick.  I do not take this for granted. They do look after me here and I’m pretty sure that after my last stay (septic shock – summer 2021), they are being extra cautious with me.  The nurses are wonderful and the view is nice.

But at the end of the day, There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

UPDATE – I wasn’t wearing ruby slippers, but in a bizarre turn of events about an hour after I posted this blog, I got word that they are sending me home today.  I don’t know if the doctor read my blog, but I know God heard my prayers.