The Years Fly By

Last night found us at the Wellness Community's Renal Cell Networking Group meeting. On the way home, I remembered that I missed last year's March meeting because I was in the hospital. I've gone over a year without being hospitalized!

That might not sound like much, but here's the summary for the last few years:
2004 - 4 stays (surgery and complications)
2005 - 8 stays (treatments, complications and drug reactions)
2006 - 2 stays (drug reactions)

Each stay was for a minimum of 3 days, and 5 lasted over a week. I was basically out of it for the first couple of days of each stay, surfacing gradually to full competence and boredom in the last days. I started keeping non-challenging, small knitting projects packed at the ready in anticipation of those last days.

I became expert at dancing my IV pole all the way to the hospital gift shop to pick up magazines and newspapers. I got to know some wonderful hospital employees. I spent a Fourth of July, a Christmas Eve, and my 15th wedding anniversary in the hospital. With all that practice, I got to be pretty good at coping with it. But, guess what - I haven't missed it at all!