Recovering at home

When I came in to see Ryan on Thursday, he was already planning on coming home. He had a little trouble with nausea that morning, but managed to keep his lunch down. And he didn't have any problems eating the cake the Marines brought him to celebrate the Marine Corps' 233rd birthday. LtGen Flynn (CG MCCDC) and his wife were in town for the cake cutting ceremony, and visited with Ryan and I beforehand. LtGen Flynn had visited the last time Ryan was in for surgery in September, so he's been getting to know us pretty well.

Ryan was discharged at 5:00 and was very happy to be going home. Even though he had his own room this time, he never sleeps well in the hospital. Nurses come in every 4 hours to check his vitals and volunteers and chaplains are always popping in to say hello. It's very nice of everyone to want to visit with him, but after surgery, Ryan needs sleep more than anything. And he's too nice to ask anyone to leave.

We went in for a follow up appointment with Ryan's surgeon on Friday. Dr. Thomas is very happy with how everything is healing and anticipates good results. It's hard to tell what looks good and what doesn't when he's covered in blood and stitches. And you can't see the grafts under his eye and above his lip at all because they are covered with pressure dressings. Those will come off on Monday, so for the weekend he looks like he has a yellow mustache above his lip. It's actually quite comical. So we tease Ryan to enjoy it, since it's the only mustache he'll ever have. He hasn't been in very much pain at all, so that's been very nice. He's been up watching college football today and I got him hooked on Sudoku. (Thanks Rebecca!) He's been playing with the kids and offered to watch Noah for an hour so I could take Maya to gymnastics. He even changed a dirty diaper! So, all in all, he's doing pretty good for having had surgery 3 days ago.