Part Forty Two: Thirty Pounds of Fun

After the usual start to my day, I showered and pulled on a pair of blue jeans for the first time since the surgery. I guess I really shouldn't say "the first time"... since there was one other attempt to put on blue jeans. Let's try this again.

After the usual start to my day, I showered and sucessfully pulled on a pair of blue jeans for the first time since the surgery. I had previously been forced to wear pajama pants around the house and my Six Flags work khakis when I ventured outside. The khakis were pretty loose and fairly low cut, which allowed my swollen bloated belly to hang out with no danger of the waistband irritating my largest incision. It felt good to have another pant option, though... and with the addition of a snug little t-shirt, I felt like I had passed some sort of milestone in my recovery period. No more sweat pants for me.

With the doctors permission to do whatever I feel comfortable doing, I set out to accomplish a few tasks which have been waiting patiently while I've been sitting around playing video games and eating bon-bons. First of all, I cleaned up my room... which has become a dumping ground over the past week and a half. With me spending most of my time camped out in the comfy chair in the living room, I've been able to ignore the growing piles of dirty laundry and miscellaneous items that get thrown in there every time company arrives.

Our laundry area is two floors down in the creepy basement and I felt fairly comfortable maneuvering my hamper down the steep stairs. Luckily, I've been wearing the same outfits for days on end, so my load was a little lighter than normal.

My next task was to pack up a pair of hockey shoulder pads that I sold on eBay a few weeks back (and just finally received payment for). Packing the box was a good test for my inevitable return to the UPS Store, and I was surprised by how taxing it turned out to be. Even though the item was light, I had to cut a box down to size. Crawling around on the floor with a measuring tape and razor blade seemed a little bit trickier than normal... and I never realized how much you use your stomach muscles when drawing a tape gun across a box repeatedly.

With the box packed and the shipping label applied, I set out to complete my next task- getting groceries. In the past, Carrie and I always shared grocery duty. But lately, there have been many times where my work schedule afforded me time during the day to get the grocery shopping out of the way. Before my surgery, C made a special trip to the store to get things that I would be able to enjoy during my recovery period (Jell-O, instant breakfast, smoothies, etc...). The supply has all but vanished and Carrie had a sudden craving for a pork chop dinner, so I volunteered to venture out and get groceries today.

C warned that the trip to the grocery might turn out to be more exhausting than I expected, and I found this to be true. Just pushing the cart around the store seemed more difficult than normal. And I noted that I am currently unable to walk with my usual cart-pushing-swagger. Instead, I was walking like a bow-legged-little-old-lady. How embarrassing.

I hadn't planned on buying much because I knew I would be faced with carrying all these groceries up the steps to my second floor apartment. The last item on my list was a 12-pack of Mountain Dew. I rolled up to the heaping pile of soda and questioned whether or not I really really needed to have that Mountain Dew right now. My answer: HELL YEAH!

With the Mountain Dew in the cart along with the pork chops and Cap'n Crunch and other necessary items, I strategically loaded up my items into three plastic bags and returned home to face that daunting flight of stairs. My first goal was to make it from the garage, in the back of the house, to the front door. My usual strategy is to thread as many plastic grocery bags onto my arms, and hobble as quickly as possible to the front door, hopefully arriving before the bags break or cut off my circulation. For this outing, I briefly thought about making two trips, then loaded up the three grocery bags and Mountain Dew and jetted out of the garage and to the front door. The whole way I was thinking that my doctor would probably kill me if he saw me doing this.

Somehow, I made the trip without busting a gut or otherwise injuring myself. For the haul up the stairs, I resigned myself to two trips. Because I like to amuse myself with such details, I was sure to weigh my groceries once I got them upstairs. In all, my groceries weighed thirty pounds, which is about twenty pounds more than the doctor recommended I lift. Oooops.

The groceries now unloaded, I think I'm going to be kicking back in my chair here for a while. It felt good, though, to get out and do some driving and actually accomplish a few things. There's also a devilishly good feeling that comes from disobeying your doctor's orders and getting away with it. In case you're interested, a 12-pack of Mt. Dew weighs about ten pounds. Was it worth the exhaustion? Totally!