Marilyn smiled and nodded. “I’m all healed up.”
“What about the Pill? I’m guessing you’re off that still,” I asked.
“Yes. I wonder when I can start that again,” she admitted.
I grinned at her. “You’re at the U.S. Army’s premier hospital in the entire world. I bet you can find a doctor here to answer that question. In fact, I’ll bet you a million dollars that you can find a doctor here who can answer your questions!”
Marilyn’s face lit up. “But I don’t have a million dollars! What if I lose?”
I leered at her. “I’m sure we can find something else of value to wager. Maybe I’ll take it out in trade.”
Marilyn snorted and picked up Charlie who was fussing and waking up. A different nurse also came in, in response to my call for more pain meds. “You called?” she asked, pleasantly.
“My leg is bothering me. Any chance I can get something for it.”
She looked at my chart and nodded. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll bring something.”
“Thank you. Hey, can I ask a couple of questions?”
“Carl!” protested Marilyn.
“Sure,” answered the nurse, who eyed Marilyn.
I ignored Marilyn. “How long is this catheter going to be in?” I turned to my wife. “Honey, she’s a nurse. Trust me, we can ask her.”
Nurse Greghams laughed. “Very true. As to the catheter, I can’t really say. At least not until after your surgery, but you can ask the doctor tomorrow. Anything else?”
“My wife needs to go back on the Pill. Any chance you can help with that?”
Marilyn squealed in embarrassed outrage, but the nurse just laughed and asked Marilyn what brand she had used. “You’ll need to see one of the OB-GYNs, but I can call and see about getting you an appointment.”
Marilyn slugged my shoulder, and then sweetly said, “Thank you. Please.”
Nurse Greghams laughed some more and then left to get me some hospital quality meds.
It was also time for Marilyn and Charlie to leave. We had been talking the entire afternoon, and still had so much more to say. My son woke up enough to sit in my lap and play with my fingers some more, and then I kissed him and his mother good-bye. I was perhaps more enthusiastic with his mother. Marilyn promised to return early the next morning and we would talk some more. The surgeon was supposed to come along in the morning and go over things with me also, so if the timing was good, she could sit in on it.
The next day was a Sunday. Marilyn got there in time to watch me finishing my juice and toast. I was now eating normal meals, or at least as normal as hospital meals get. Part of the liquids only was that by the time I got to the hospital I had been without food for a number of days, and surviving on Lurps for most of the time before that. If I had managed to get a real meal, I’d have puked it up in no time.
Marilyn was nursing Charlie when the surgeon came in. He had good news and he had bad news. The good news was that he wouldn’t have to amputate, and I wouldn’t need a knee replacement yet. The bad news was that I had some surgery to repair ligaments coming, and I would need rehab for months. Ultimately I would need a new knee, and in the meantime, I would probably be able to predict the weather. He had a model of a knee and pictures of all the ligaments, and it was just gibberish to me. Worst of all, they wouldn’t know how bad it was until they cut me open.
In the early Eighties, most hospital imaging was still limited to old fashioned X-rays. While CT scans and PET scans and MRI scans had all been invented, the equipment involved was ludicrously expensive and very rare. Certainly the Army didn’t have this stuff. It would take the coming digital revolution to bring costs down to the point where they would be commonplace. The same applied to the surgery itself. Arthroscopic surgery was still experimental. They were going to have to cut me open the old fashioned way, with long zippers and extensive recovery time. Surgery was scheduled for Monday morning, and Marilyn was asked to stay away. I would be unconscious for hours, and there was nothing she could do; they would call her when I woke up.
Afterwards, Marilyn and I talked some more, for the rest of the day. She had a very good idea, too. “Maybe we can call Suzie and see if she can visit?”
I blinked at that. “It’s the end of November. She’s in school. You’ll have to call her and ask. Maybe she can take a bus? Or she can wait until Christmas, I’ll probably still be here then.”
“She needs a car,” Marilyn remarked in passing.
That got me to thinking. So did Marilyn and I! “You know, hold that thought. I need to dump the Impala, and you need something bigger for you and Buster. How about a station wagon for you?” Chrysler had not reinvented the minivan yet, not for a few more years.
Marilyn’s lips flapped for a moment. “Really? I can get a new car!?”
“Whatever you want, honey. Well, within reason. I don’t think Rolls Royce makes station wagons.”
“Very funny! What about you?”
I shrugged. “I’ll trade the Impala in on a Caddy or a Lincoln. Something nice and big. We can have a car, and a wagon.”
“What about my little Toyota?”
“Probably won’t get much for it. Why don’t we just give it to Suzie? It’d be perfect for a college kid. She could pay the gas and Dad would pay the insurance,” I said.
“What would your parents say if they knew where it came from?”
I shrugged again. “Suzie can lie to them. That would be her problem, not mine.”
“We should call Tusker and Tessa as well, invite them down. We haven’t seen them since last year!” she said.
That was true. We had kept in touch with Tusker and Tessa since that oh so memorable wedding! They were married now (grandchildren will melt a grandparent’s heart!) and were doing well. They had both graduated, Tessa with her Bachelors and Tusker with his Associates in Business, and last year, on schedule, he had opened a small motorcycle repair and sales shop in Timonium. “That’s a very good idea! Give them a call and ask them to come down. We can get them a room for the night. When Suzie comes, she can stay in the suite with you, I guess.”
She nodded, but then gave me a worried look. “Do you have their phone numbers? I left my address book at home!”
“And that is why the good Lord gave us telephone operators. When you get back to the hotel, get an outside line and call the operator. You can probably get a number for Tusker’s business, and if you call the University of Delaware, they can at least find a way to get a message to Suzie. It’s too late for either of them to come here this weekend.”
Like my last trip through time and space, Suzie had applied to the University of Delaware’s nursing school. She was just now starting her junior year. In a couple of years she would have both her BS in nursing and her RN credentials. She was about an hour’s drive from Lutherville. “Maybe Suzie can take a bus from Dover to Washington, and you can get her or she can take a cab,” I said.
We talked about future plans, now that I was no longer going to be going career in the Army. Wherever we ended up, I would buy or build Marilyn a house, and we’d get some new cars, and as soon as I could get loose from the hospital, we were going on a nice and long vacation! Beyond that, we didn’t make too many plans. We couldn’t agree on where we wanted to live. Marilyn wanted to leave the Fayetteville area (too hot, too muggy, too southern) and I refused to move to upstate New York (I spent fifty-plus years shoveling snow up there; screw that idea!)
A lot of time was simply spent getting acquainted with my son. Charlie was only about ten weeks old, but he certainly seemed to have a healthy curiosity about everything. He looked at everything! He couldn’t sit up by himself yet, but that little head and those little eyes kept turning around to watch everybody! Otherwise he was nothing but a food processing machine. Mom’s milk went in one end, and toxic chemical waste came out the other end. What that child produced was a violation of the Geneva Conventions against gas and germ warfare! Oh, and keep your fingers and car keys out of his reach, since it all went into his mouth!