'At best i can figure, for the next two days or so I was in and out of consciousness like a 1981 Engineering frosh. The pole I climbed was an elevated bed, I puked where I could, peeing seemed like a Greyhound escorted Pondarosa trip for seniors and I just went on and on in four hour blocks from one pain medication to the next - all the while my face shifting from purple to sheet white from hello to who are you??

"Liza."  She would say. " It's Liza."   Who - never - ever -  left - my side. Sigh. Laura Secord Liza.

And then - one morning say,  day three - the creepy purple rain prince movie that had been playing in my head faded like the lyrics to a mister mister song.. ahhhh   haaa

"AHA, OW.  JESUS murphy on a hot plate!! OW!!"

But I had figured out how to sit up! It took a few minutes to untie my tongue from my teeth and shake my head onside right but I did it. It was terrifying. My right side from sternum round about to my ribs ached, stung - and oh dear mercy of trailer park sump pump outs - I smelled like a day care for crack babies - no I have not been to one and no there is not likely a real one but I think I have the recipe for the 'ew dew scent'. ( a potential ski line for those who cannot ski but like to wear $900.00 long coats along the hill ringing a cow bell and glugging Pino) I was sitting up right? 

"OH Good! You are up and awake!" said not Laura Secord Liza - but one who looked like a gal who had just rescued a writer from a winter snow wreck.... "How are you"? Time to milk your drain." Said no one ever to me ever. " Stand over here - open your shirt."

" UMM... milk my what?" I began to whimper... and want wine..

"Drain. The thing I stuffed into your chest - the thing that will not let you move your arm. It is pinned inside your nightshirt. We have to empty it - measure what is collecting in your pouch and make sure you are safely draining your fluids and do not have an infection."

Said not Nurse Secord, maybe Nurse Misery but most likely nurse Batshit Brave. So Bloody Brave.

After easing off the new 4 foot high huge bed Liza got to protect me from our Danes, we cried our way to the bathroom. This was the first time I was conscious enough to semi understand the magnitude of my surgery. It hurt. I was scared and i was silent. So, saying nothing and holding the foot long tube sticking out of my chest tightly between my fingers so it would not yank out - I watched Liza run her fingers over the tube -  squeezing the bloody pus, lymphatic fluids and general goo from my insides into a little bulb. She snapped it off and poured my grapey viscose insides into a measuring cup and swirled it - Sniffed it -  Noting the colour and the aroma in a notebook.

'Chateau du grim 2014 ' When the fluids are clear and under a certain line the drain can come out." She said oh so calmly with a petit verdo accent.
 
"Oh ya - well - it just looks likes a young Rioja right now - so when it looks like a skim milk pinot grigio I am done with this ?

"Baby, if you ever look like a skim milk pino anything I am so done with this. Now get your ass back in bed. -

I have a book to read...because the ending is just not quite how I want it to be..."