Catching Up on LOST

Yesterday evening we had a visit from Michele the Home Care Nurse. She recorded my vital signs, took some blood, and changed the dressing on my IV site. We'll be getting a visit like this once a week.

But my biggest accomplishment was catching up on back episodes of Lost.

When I went into the hospital, I was in much worse shape than I knew. Maybe it was the pain, the infection, or the various drugs...in any case, I was mentally sluggish and lacked the ability to concentrate on anything. At one point, someone gave me an issue of Newsweek, and I remember reading and re-reading each paragraph, trying to follow what was being said. (I repeat, this was Newsweek -- not exactly the most intellectually challenging fare. Maybe I should have asked for People.)

In short, I was only hitting on one or two cylinders, mentally. Fortunately, even on one or two cylinders I'm pretty high-functioning. I am very glad that I kept the wherewithal to smile, be pleasant, and thank everyone for all the things they kept doing for me. (Hint: If you are in the hospital, make an effort to be appreciative of everyone who helps you. These folks work very hard, and they get little thanks. It's the right thing to do -- but it also doesn't hurt to get the reputation of being a friendly, cooperative, and appreciative patient.) At one point I asked Thomas to buy a couple dozen donuts and bring them in for the staff as a thank-you...I heard about that for days.

(Hint #2: This isn't just true about the hospital. Everybody likes to hear "thank you, I appreciate the work you do.")

Anyway, back to Lost. I didn't fully realize just how dull my mind was, until about Tuesday or Wednesday of the second week, when the infection was finally on the run. It was only then that my mind started to clear, and only by comparison did I see how bad I'd been.

In addition, between morphine and Percocet, I had a tendency to doze off a lot.

So while I was sick and in the hospital, I didn't tackle anything that required much concentration and brainpower. My favorite TV programs were sitcoms that were familiar to me, like Friends and The Simpsons, or Discovery Channel programs like Mythbusters and How It's Made. Or CNN.

I certainly knew that I couldn't tackle anything as demanding as Lost. (Okay, it's not great literature, but you do need to concentrate and put things together in your head.) So I deliberately avoided it, even though I'm a big Lost fan. Luckily, Thomas recorded the three episodes I missed.

This Tuesday I watched the first of these episodes, and then yesterday I watched the next two. And the experience was as rewarding as I'd hoped. They were good episodes. This cleared the decks for last night's brand new episode at 10 pm, which I also watched (and also liked). It's a relief to be back to something resembling mentally normal.

(Of course, I'm still flat on my back most of the day, and still taking Percocet and another painkiller that make me drowsy, so I'm sure I'm not hitting on all cylinders yet. But I'm on the way.)

-Don