It's a Hot One

 As one might expect, it's been very hot here in Texas in August. The heat drives all kinds of critters inside in search of water, relief and prey. They killed a little scorpion in Physical Therapy yesterday. this hunting spider (a bit more than a quarter in size) haunted our halls for two nights running before disappearing under my hospital bed. It had the honor of being the first picture taken with my new phone. Fairly harmless, of course; you don't mess with it and it doesn't mess with you.

My recovery proceeds apace. I'm learning methods of transfer (bed to chair, bed to 'pottty chair, etc.) and the exposed bone in my foot is almost completely covered. Everyone is cautious about putting a projected date on my complete recovery of course. But that's what's up with me.

Purgatory?

 

I was laying in my hospital bed today (and despite what anyone says, sitting on your ass all day is not a pleasant experience) when it struck me as how similar the experience must be to Purgatory. Not the old medieval concept of compensatory torture, but as remedial and corrective therapy to bring one to a healthy status.

The nurses are like firm but helpful ministers, the regimins and routines designed to bring you back to 'factory specs,' as it were. The food is adequately good but not so great as to tempt you to gluttony or concupiscence (I've often wondered if I could request salt and pepper shelters and a bottle of ketchup - which has more sugar than you'd expect). 

It is in fact a kind of torture but obviously beneficial in the long run, like training a dog to the leash. The ultimate goal is to remove the leash,free the dog from choking, and leave it obedient to good habits.

It seems almost ungrateful to compare it with torture. But the suffering is there; it is contingent on the consequences of my own actions with perhaps a dash of bad luck. It is the duty (cheerfully fulfilled) of the nurses (angel/agents of the Purgatory simile) to help me get through it.

Well, I'm Back

I did not accomplish my goal of 3000 posts by my 63rd birthday; instead I found myself in the hospital fighting an infected right foot. For a while it seemed I might lose the leg, right up to the knee. But thanks to the efforts of my doctor it was confined to a wound and the loss of a little toe. Right now I am undergoing recovery and rehabilitation at a place called AVIR at Warm Springs, a place at which, coincidentally, my grandmother on my father's side spent the last years of her life.

I have a brand-new laptop computer, of a basic but totally adequate nature, which my brother John went through some pains to help me obtain. My niece Morgandy ("who has the Knowin's of the Doin's") helped set it up. This old dog is struggling to learn new tricks and get back on track, especially with my scripts for The Wizard, the Prince, the Warrior, and His Son. This is my first effort at a post in over half a month; let's hope they get better as I get better,