Wristed

Thank you to all who sent good wishes to my Favorite Panamanian yesterday after her surgical procedure. As I wrote yesterday, it was all good news and they were able to go in through the wrist instead of the groin this time. While that is definite progress, it turns out the wrist is one of the more necessary joints in the body. Who knew? She had to keep it immobilized for eight hours after the surgery. Even after that time, the wrist was pretty tender and she’s still in a little bit of pain. This offered me the perfect opportunity to repay her for her yeoman work last fall when I was recovering from the prostate surgery. 

FBR Last Night

She was a great nurse then and I can only hope to approach her standards. When I made her lunch, I succeeded in making my first ever serving of quinoa, which I still don’t know how to pronounce. She proclaimed it was very well done but she’s always been known to cut me some slack when she’s forced to eat my cooking. She’s recovering well though and wanted to, again, thank everyone for the thoughts. She read them all and laughed when the Cantankerous Friend’s one included a pleading for cookies. Somewhere upstairs my mother is laughing also, somethings never change.

BRS Helping Dad in the Call

The granddaughters were swarming last night. BR3 does not like it when my son turns the camera away from her during our calls. My son was turning because the BRS was blowing a party favor into his other ear. Parenthood, the gift that just keeps giving. The FBR actually consented to interrupting our call with her over the past couple nights to allow us to speak with my son’s family since they called around the same time. This was not an easy decision for the FBR who considers grandparents to be in contractual thrall during our calls.

BR3 Reaching for Phone

Tomorrow is second vaccination day for me which has me a little excited. I am confident this is the first time in my life that I can state that without qualification. I was never a huge fan of injections to begin with but the Army certainly confirmed that disinclination. One of the most enduring memories of my basic training, which took place forty-three years ago this month (Wow – I am frigging old!), was the serial vaccinations and other assorted inoculations we were subjected to. Now this really was a mass vaccination site and no needles were used. They lined us up, had us bare both arms and then marched us through a site with medics on either side of the line. The medics had hydraulic applicators which literally blew the drugs through the skin by brute force.

FBR Demanded I take a Picture of her Arrangement

We were told not to flinch or the injection could break the skin and cause bleeding. It’s tough not to flinch when you see the guys ahead of you reacting to the shots, which is an extremely accurate description of this experience. You didn’t want to be near the end of the line when the medics invariably got a little tired and were less focused, causing a lot more bleeding for those at the end. It was very effective though as they were able to inoculate nearly two hundred guys in less than a half hour. The brute force caused some very bruised shoulders even if you didn’t bleed. The drill sergeants took immediately pity on us and marched us to the PT field for an extended session of pushups. They claimed it helped get the drugs circulating. I’m dubious about that claim. This was at least better than the inevitable gamma globulin shot you always got before you deployed anywhere. That sat like a rock in your butt for weeks. Sometimes, rarely, I don’t miss the Army. I looked it up and the military stopped using the injector guns in the 1990s when they figured out it could pass infections between Soldiers.

Imagine this on Both Sides at Once

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RECURRING CHARACTERS                                            

BR3 – granddaughter #3, BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter, ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete = my daughter in law; Wingman – my son in law; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Soxfather - my brother in law; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Pittsburgh College Roommate – high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd musquetera (musketeer); Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member, Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during her single days in Brooklyn