And So On

waterdrops and fallen leaf 2
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

Well, the QOB has a lacerated spleen. It must have happened on Friday when she fell at the CVS and it would explain why she was getting slowly weaker and more out of it for the next couple of days. The doctor (one of the doctors. If you've ever had a relative in the hospital you know just as well as I do that saying The Doctor is just shorthand for any one of a million possibly doctors or maybe they're something else who come wandering through every once in a while and may or may not make the effort to call you no matter how many frantic notes you've left to that effect.) seems to think she has a very good chance of recovering completely given total bed rest and for the next few days anyway, careful monitoring in the hospital. It's good news in that it's not cancer or any other kind of disease but it's bad news in that the spleen, contrary to what you may think, is not really one of those disposable organs. I've been reading up on spleens even though any reading about internal organs or, god forbid, looking at pictures of same, makes me get all weird and squoogly inside and then I have to stand up and walk around taking deep breaths for a bit.

It turns out that spleens get banged up all the time, particularly if you're a hockey player (maybe we should pull the QOB out of that over 80 league, huh) but also in car accidents and for various other reasons - such as falling down completely, boom - and they're usually pretty good at repairing themselves, although if you don't lie completely still while they're doing it, you can die from an undiagnosed spleen injury. Yeah, I know, that made me want to have my spleen examined immediately too, but I'm going to go on the assumption that it's working away just fine, since I haven't fallen down or had anything much physically traumatic happen except being clonked on the head by a tourist at work the other day (she answered her cell phone, thus dropping the handle of the geode cracker, which promptly obeyed gravity and bonked me hard on the side of my forehead, where I now have a nice bump which is fortunately invisible to everyone but me. I hope.)

At any rate, the QOB has been loving the hospital, which made us all a bit cranky, since you're not supposed to be happy in the hospital for gods' sake. But she likes it: the nice nurses bring her food three times a day and all she has to do is lie there and watch the Relaxation Station: a constantly running loop of soothing pictures of flowers and waterfalls and scenic pictures accompanied by the kind of cloying New Age music that makes me want to tear the TV from the wall and toss it down into the parking deck but, hey, I am not 79 years old and she thinks the Relaxation Station is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm threatening to get her one of those DVDs for cats, you know, the ones that show aquariums and mice and stuff, although young M thinks we should just get her a real aquarium and maybe we should. Might be too exciting, though.