Things are bad for Wally

oh my - what a terrible situation. I'm so sorry - I send you my best thoughts and hugs.

I am so glad the surgery was positive - still thinking of you both (and the kitty cats too).

Thanks linkat.

I'm finally, today, in the correct time zone.

Let me tell you what happened yesterday. As I said, all this began Friday morning, got him to the doctor at 9am.
So yesterday morning, I call the nursing station to find out how he is before I go over. They send me to his nurses cell, and he says "well, I'm right in the room, I'll let him talk to you." He hands Wally the phone, and Wally says "hey, how's it going?" just as normal as you please. I said "um, how are you feeling?" and he says he fine, pain under control, he's wide awake and already had a double portion breakfast, and now they were going to take him down for his first cardiac physical therapy session

The day before I'd been emailed a form from the property appraisal district that I'd neglected to get Wally to sign as well as my signature. I thought "well, I guess I'll take it over there and have him sign it, and then go carry it over to their office."

I go over, the nurse is telling me he's doing much better than expected...yeah, that's an understatement, he'd been walking the hallways and eating and having a grand old time. So he signs the paper, and I drive up to North Austin to the appraisal district office. This is where things get weird. So the lights were all on in the building, but I don't see cars in the front parking lot, but notice cars parked in the back. I figure they belong to employees, and they are just having a slow day, with no customers.
I walk right in, everythings all open, all lights on, I can see computer screens that are turned on etc....but no people. There's ususally 6 to 10 people walking around in the section I go to. I start calling out "helloooooo.....hellooooo" and start walking around. Like I said, it looked like everything was turned on, and like everyone had just been raptured or something from their work station. I go to the other side of the building, walk all around there, then start to go upstairs. Then it hits me that maybe a gunman is in there, and I could be walking into it. So I leave to think about what to do. I had seen the sign on the door that said they were going to be closed for the 28th and 29th for the holiday, but when I saw that I had thought....Well, it's a good thing this is Tuesday. I just knew it was Tuesday, because I just knew Wally had had his surgery on Monday, because he'd had to spend the weekend in the hospital, but we had to make a decision to do this or not because otherwise we would have to wait 6 whole days until next Monday.
So, for some reason, I take out my phone and look at the calendar, and realize it's not Tuesday, but Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, and no wonder no one was there. Then I was thinking "but....but....why is the building open?" I still don't know why. Maybe a big mistake on their part?
So I drive back to the hospital in a daze, finally noticing there's less cars on the road, parking lots are empty. I still can't reconcile where those days went.

But back to Wally. They are planning, maybe today, to move him back to a regular room. Maybe going home by Monday.

Because of some other circumstances, I don't need to work right now. I can be home all month to take him to therapy, since he can't drive for awhile, and to just take care of my house, read, sleep late, go to the outdoor heated pool, go to yoga. I think these are pretty good ambitions right now, and no more.

Absolutely. Ten slow lengths followed by a cappucino.

What a remarkable world we live in. Even ten or so years ago, this would have been a few weeks in hospital at least.

Take it easy, Chai. Both of you need to lower stress levels.



And no hanky panky.

So happy Wally is so much better.

<I would have called the cops about the open door><That's just me>

What an odd, though understandable, time shift you had. I'm having one today, I keep thinking it's Saturday and that I have to be at lunch with someone tomorrow, Sunday, after the race I'm going to run on the Seventh....uh, right, the seventh. I'm off more than a week.

Please, please, rest yourself, destress yourself.

Joe(I'm laying down for awhile)Nation

Great news, Chai. Good luck and good fortune to you both

Time is a funny thing.
Very glad to read how well Wally is doing, and that you can not be working for a while. Good timing there. I'm guessing it could be hard for you to quite relax, given these last days, but it's looking like you will be able to.

**** me. I never even thought of that.

I'm going to bed too. There's 2 cats already cuddled on the bed, wating for me.

That's terrific news that Wally is doing so well, and that he sounds good, and is already up and able to walk. What a delightful surprise!

I know what you mean about being disoriented. I keep thinking it's Monday, because yesterday felt like a Sunday--and I don't have your excuse.

I hope everything continues to go well with Wally's recovery.

Time travel. You've experienced it.

Nobel Prize time.

Now all you gotta do is decide what to wear when you go to Stockholm.

What an imagination. You make me laugh.

I am so happy that things are going so well. It really made my day. I was very sad when I first read all this - the first I've read of it was this morning and now it sounds so great. And you made me laugh.

Now on the serious side of things - did you ever find out why everything was all open in that office?

Chai, Time and day confusion are not unusual. Honest.

I would have been scared too once I realized that the building was open and empty.

Thrilled that Wally is walking around, eating, and recovering well.

I was walking two days after brain surgery. What a woild.

Be good to yourself, kid.

I'm just adding to the "Wonderful news!" chorus.

Your time lag sounds pretty scary. I hope you'll be getting some serious cat cuddling rest time right away!

Could have been the cleaning crew. They will leave the building "open" until they leave.

Yeah, I was thinking that, or similar.

Great to see the good news! Thanks for updating us when I know you have a lot of other stuff to deal with, Chai.

I really get the temporal weirdness. I was an absolute mess when my daughter was about to have a bunch of really mundane surgeries, my brain just wasn't functioning right. Too much of it was taken up with the ongoing "she'll be fine/ but what if she isn't/ but she'll be fine/ but…" battle. And those were totally mundane surgeries. (She was fine.)

I swear, there must be some sort of space-time vortex at hospitals.

Whenever I have to spend a lot of time at one, I always get confused about days of the week. Even days and nights. The clocks don't help. I'm just as likely to think it's 7 a.m. when it's 7 p.m. Then, when I get home, I'm always shocked at how many days it's been. And the drive home often seems like it takes hours, even though I know it's only a couple of miles away. It feels like hundreds.

It's like the normal rules of time and space don't apply.

No, no cleaning crew, building was absolutely empty. I had been wandering like a fool behind their counters, back into their offices....nothing. I was calling out loudly, and if anyone were there, they would have heard me. I left out the part that when I left, after realizing it was Thanksgiving, I drove around to the back of the building, to look at the vehicles back there. They were both Travis County Central Appraisal District trucks, not something the cleaning crew would use. They were very just parked there because that's were they go when not in use.

I feel like I should call the non-emergency number of the police now, to let them know the building is open. I mean, this is the nerve center for all the home owners property and property tax information.

Linkat, I'm glad I made you laugh, but I was serious.

I could totally see some disgruntled property owner going postal over his property taxes, and coming in to start gunning or take hostages.

Back in 2010, a guy in Austin set fire to his house, climbed into his Piper plane, and few it into an IRS building here, which was about 2 miles from where I worked.

**** happens. If it happens in schools, movie theaters, federal buildings in Oklahoma, at Boston marathons and World Trade Centers.....well....

Here's the IRS building afterwards....

Besides, why would the cleaning crew be there on Thanksgiving?

Making time and a half to take out trash?

looks like you got enough DNA left about to implicate you as a suspect for the big heist that occurred there.

HOWS WALLY??. I need to relate something that I think you may be in a similar position regarding.
When I had emergency surgery last year, my recuperation at home (about 3 weeks) was a real good quality time for us both. We had a chance to dwell on some of the unsaid things that weve stored up over the bustling career centered middle years. (I was just in my first year of my 60's and we talked over the things we needed to talk over as we approach our remaining tenure together because we suddenly realized that we have no idea how much time weve got left, each of us). It was good heart-to-heart talking where none of the trappings that required some decision about some bigass acquisition got in the way.

IN FACT--we actually talked a lot about getting RID of **** and
COLLECTIBLES" and volumetrically downsizing from all the expensive crap weve accumulated.

We pledged increase time for US and, I pledged to include her in my business trips (to which Ive kept firm hornoring

STUFF, now needs to be stuff that makes good sense ,not what we essentially WANT because its new and neat

The kids need some distributions of our holdings and we don't mind giving to them now cause, like if someone hits the lottery, what the hell does one really need to live. WE actually put together a real will (unlike the form will we fiiled with my attorney which was a bogus sheet of paper with some whereasses and inter alias).Weve set up a series of trusts and a "generation jump" thing for grandkiddies )

Where we need to go yet and how we plan to do it.

Intimate stuff too, of which we needed to put into action pretty badly. I tell ya, a stoking of the old burners is a good thing , and now we have no real concerns except for ech an other.

The hardest thing was making pledge to be open and not so damn circumspect about any problems we each may have. Shes waaay more complex than me so her "Sharing" happens on about 150 different levels as she tells me. WE actually spend a few hours each week on actually TALKING

MAybe you guys were waay ahead of us on these items , so maybe Im talking as someone who has been fairly clueless. No More,

Never mind.

No, farmer, you are right on track.

Actually, about a year ago I think we finally got our wills in order. That gave us the opportunity to talk about what mattered to us as a couple, and as individuals.

As far as Really Talking, yeah, that's been happening over the last few months too. Thing is, yeah, I'm like your wife and when I talk about things it's on a lot of levels simultaneously, and it's only rarely he communicates that way.
Strong silent type and all that bullshit, it's like he never thought about the words to communicate such things. When I ask him for instance "How do you FEEL about this and such", many times it "I don't know" or "I don't have enough information yet to make a decision on that" I'm not asking about decisions, I'm asking about feelings. I know, I know, the age old mars/venus thing.

That and a ton of other things need to be happening. Life is short.