No Place Like Home

I can't tell you how true this is for me.

I'm home, y'all. After 22 days in the hospital, getting probed and prodded and poked on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis, I am back in the fold. It looks like home (except better, thanks to some amazing work on the part of my wife and some very enthusiastic neighbors), it smells like home, but most importantly, it feels like home. And I am 95% SO HAPPY.

What's that 5%? What's that about? Hard to describe, honestly.

I can't fully explain what it was like to go through the stem-cell transplant. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but it was also strangely simple. Straightforward. Almost passive.

There were nurses there to care for me (and HOLY COW, were they amazing), food available at the touch of a few buttons, a full staff whose job was to make sure I was healthy and as happy as possible. Yes, I got up to exercise and shower each day (harder than it might sound), but most everything else was something that was done to me.

Why yes, I am comparing myself to a carnivorous plant.

There's safety there. A lack of expectation.

That just isn't true of being home. At least right now.

If I get sick again, I'll have to leave home once more to get the treatment I need. Even a run-of-the-mill head cold could land me in the hospital.

There's something else. I have to let go of my desire to be helpful.

Yeah, that's about my level of helpfulness.

I'm not supposed to do a whole host of things: mowing the lawn, cleaning up dog poop/cleaning the cat's litter box, dusting, vacuuming... Basically, for the next few months, I am a leech.

It feels about as gross as this looks, tbh.

I'm not claiming that I've been the most amazing partner in this regard. That said, now that I can't help, I'm very aware of just how much my wife is doing on a daily basis. She's already overburdened, and to see her work her tail end off while I sit like a lump on a log is... well, it's not fantastic.

I'm pretty sure this is an actual photograph of me.

I missed our animals while I was gone. Now I'm back, and the moment I walked in, they all wanted to sit in my lap (which I loved). I'm not really supposed to do that. I have to wash my hands every single time I pet or even touch them, and dog and cat kisses are OUT OF THE QUESTION.

I don't like that. I don't like that one bit.

Also, bizarrely, I miss my hospital room. I have no explanation for that. Well, the decorations my wife put up, and the many visits I received might explain part of it, but not the tears that I shed as I left.

That's the 5%. It's weird, I know. I fully admit it.

Now let's talk about the 95%. Gods, people, I don't even know where to start.

Yes, I do. I got to snuggle with my wife without the fear of someone popping into the room and judging us for being "that couple." I slept in my own bed. I slumbered the entire night through, without anyone coming in to check my vitals or draw my blood.

I am home.

Home.

It's so much more than a place, although the place is part of it. It's warmth and comfort and love and a much deeper sense of "safety" than what I experienced in the hospital. It's my happy place.

I don't ever want to leave.
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Next:  an eye-opening expose' of the sordid behind-the-scenes goings-on of the hospital staff.

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