A Room with a View

You pay a lot of money for a great view in a fancy hotel room. You pay even more money for a lousy view in a hospital room.

I’m at the Hospital of St. Raphael, now part of the Yale-New Haven hospital network, having surgery on my right knee.

“Wait,” you say, “didn’t I already do that?”

Why yes, I did. More than two years ago. That surgery caused nothing but trouble. And the second surgery, trying to find the cause of the problems, found nothing. This is round three.

New hospital, new surgeon. Ruin my life once, shame on you. Ruin my life twice, shame on me.

Yesterday’s surgery was the easy part. I remember my back being painted with an antiseptic and then the next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room, where I spent three hours before being moved up to this aforementioned room. Now the real work begins. The twice-daily painful physical therapy, first here in the hospital and then at home for the next couple weeks. Followed by twice-weekly visits to a rehab center for a month after that.

And then there are the long nights of trying to sleep through the pain, wondering what comes first: taking enough Vicodin to mask the pain, or OD’ing on it.

This is day seven hundred and ninety-eight of this knee play. I remember it all, and I am NOT looking forward to repeating any of it.