Saturday

Being home is great. I'm still not feeling 100% but with each day that passes things seem to get a little better. I still have some pain/discomfort associated with where they placed the drain. My muscles in that area feel bruised which makes it uncomfortable to sit or lie in one position for too long. Getting up for frequent walks and forcing myself to sit rather than lie seems to be helping though.

My other main complaint is a complete lack of muscle tone in my abs. As you can imagine, having been sliced and diced they are in rough shape. They don't hurt at all, they just can't support the movements they used to be able to. For instance, trying to sit up in bed is an impossible task. In order for me to get out of bed I can't sit up, I just have to kind of roll to one side and flop onto the floor at which point I can use other muscles that function properly to get to my feet. It seems like maybe I need to see a physiotherapist about my muscle rehab. I have no idea what exercises I should be doing (if any?) to get my useless abs back into some semblance of shape.

Its amazing how much changes in three weeks when you have young kids. Being back at home now I feel completely out of touch with what they like to eat, drink, play with and wear. During my hospital stay Andrew pushed out a new tooth and now likes to have orange juice with his breakfast. He doesn't have a hope of fitting into any 12 month clothes and he's perfected the hammer-the-pegs game which is now one of his favourites. Carly has taken to making up stories and games to play although they rarely make sense ("dad you sit here and count to ten and I'll get the green block and put it in the school bus after I have some juice"). She has learned to change the channel on the tv from treehouse to "news" and her new favourite drink is Boulthouse strawberry-banana smoothie. Now that was only 3 weeks. Imagine being one of those Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan. If you had young kids and went away for a six month tour of duty there would be almost nothing the same about them when you came back. Now granted they can skype and video conference and all that but its not the same as being with them, day after day seeing all the little things that change. Because it's the accumulation of those little changes over time that can make you feel out of touch.