The Great Green Surgery Adventure

... otherwise known as

Spending St. Patrick's Day With A Duchess On Wheels. 

If you've read here long enough, you know that the Duchess is a woman on the go. Really, nothing much keeps her down for very long. What I haven't mentioned lately is the form of mobile transportation she's been using to do it all.

She went from two wheels...

... to  three wheels

... to four wheels.  

And on occasion to even  more wheels.   

While I admit that it was kind of nice to push her around for a change, nobody has been happy about a Duchess on wheels, especially the Duchess.

 A little pain at 75 is normal, but what we had was anything but normal.  So says the little boy who grew up in the house behind her, anyway.  These days, he makes his living as an orthopedic surgeon. What he discovered upon inspection was that we did, indeed, have problems of the abnormal variety.

The primary culprit was that fancy schmancy bionic knee that she had installed about a decade ago. They don't come with a lifetime guarantee, after all, and hers had managed to break into three pieces, causing additional damage to both the shin and thigh bones  in so doing.

Good grief. No wonder she has been in so much pain. 

So yesterday, while the rest of the world was celebrating St. Patrick's Day, 

she took a ride on these wheels. 

The little boy who grew up behind her didn't actually do the surgery. Apparently, they call in the big guns when you have blown out bionics and bone damage.

We called in the big guns too. The Great Green Surgery Adventure was enough to bring that big sister of mine all the way from Colorado.  The only bright spot of the day was being able to spend it with both of my sisters.

I've mentioned how fond I am of sisters, right?

The three of us followed her all the way into Pre Op, where she waited on the runway to get clearance for take off. That's the way it felt, anyway. I'm thankful to say that I didn't know hospitals had gotten so high tech with color coded tracking boards on the wall.

Patient # 19442 regaled us with her never ending repertoire of Irish songs because that's the way she rolls on St. Patrick's Day. I would show you the video that I took of her, but then she would have to kill me.

Hennessey Tennessee toodled the flute for nearly two hours before they wheeled her off, humming a little and pretending not to be nervous at all. She wasn't really fooling anyone, but we let her pretend anyway.  We pretended right back.

And then, we waited. We ate a late lunch and taught the high tech systems engineer from Colorad-y all about Pinterest.  She had never even  heard of it because, apparently,  she got most of the genes in her pool from Dad's side of the family.  A few hours with the weird sisters, and she was fully hooked.  Glad to help, Pinterest.

The surgery ended up taking about 3 1/2 hours. They encountered more damage than originally thought, but Dr. Big Guns was very positive and optimistic about the success of it.

Whew.

She got to her room about 7:00, very groggy and in a great deal of pain. As the anesthesia wore off and the pain medicine kicked in, things began to look a little more normal. She asked about her brother and her friend who is in hospice so we knew about whom she had been thinking   worrying at take off.  She tried to pick out faces in the room and asked for some water.

And then, 

she looked at the 250 pound nurse named Mike and said,

Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder?

Big Mike had absolutely no clue what she was talking about, but we did. Pretty soon, he understood as well because she started singing the song that goes with the question, followed by a few more wee Irish tunes as well. When he didn't join in, she decided aloud that he must not be Irish. 

The fact that she isn't Irish either is irrelevant to her on St. Patrick's Day.

And with that, she was back, still very tired and in some pain, but every bit the Duchess. You've just gotta love that woman. 

I'm heading back to the hospital this morning to relieve the Farm Sister who did night duty. I'll spend the day and night there because that's the way we roll around here.  We anticipate a painful day today as she starts her therapy.

Not looking forward to that but it is a very necessary evil. 

 She'll be at this hospital for the rest of this week. Where she goes next is still up in the air, probably to a swing bed closer to home.  Wherever it is, that's where I'll be. I'll probably have time to sit and blog stalk in the days to come, which will be a welcome relief from recent weeks of distractions.

Anyway, that's where we stand this morning.  We're praying for a complete recovery and would appreciate any and all prayers as well.

So... how did you spend your St. Patrick's Day? Bet it wasn't quite the same as mine.