I think I may be alive. Pretty sure.

The brain cells have not been quick to catch up, but today I think I am mostly awake.

So I survived the fast with flying colors; most of the time I didn't even feel hungry. I just played silly games with the various iTunes libraries and tried to keep warm. I absorbed good wishes and that was a warm feeling of another kind.

Then Doug and I got up VERY early on Friday and took me to the hospital, where they were very nice. They took away my clothes and put an IV into my hand. My son and his future wife and my parents arrived, and Doug left and apparently I did, too, because I don't remember a thing until about four pm, in my room.

The surgery went well. They did not let me hold the alien babies before they sent them off to Area 51. But I am told a normal empty uterus is 80 grams (short pair of socks) and mine was about 1200 grams (smallish sweater). My innards seem to be working nicely again; I still love prune juice but my body is back to reacting rather strongly to it.

The visiting went very well; my family and my friends kept saying how delighted they were I was doing so well. Since I can't actually remember finishing a sentence I think they had low expectations. But I have not felt nearly as bad as I expected to most of the time and I was lively enough to enjoy the company. I kept thinking we needed to have get-togethers more often, but my parents and my son and Proto-Daughter-in-Law say surgery is not a good excuse. They all seemed to be as tired as I felt, which was heartening in its way, too.

The hospital was a really clean, modern place full of gracious people and an amazing menu. I wasn't exactly hungry but they tempted me with chicken marsala and pork tenderloin. Nice light in the room (they gave me a single). Lots of fine drugs. They did wake me up to check my vital signs but since I went right back to sleep it was not a problem.

I came home on Sunday, despite not having had one of every entree on the menu, and Deb Duranceau made me oatmeal and reminded me to eat. I figured out out that writing down the time and dose of each pill I took made it much easier to know when the next one was due. There are little pieces of paper with ".5 opium @2:00 >6:00" all over the fiber kitchen. I turned out to be able to get to the bathroom by myself before I even left the hospital, but staying in the kitchenette made it easier on everyone and it is much warmer than my bedroom. So much warmer that I have had all four cats, who have been fairly careful not to spring on or off my incision. They are concerned but not worried, and wonder when I will start offering them small pieces of butter again.

Monday and Tuesday I noticed that it was too hard to text and just about too hard to watch TV. Yesterday Deb drove me to have my staples removed (which did not hurt as much as it sounds like it should) and I noticed, after my day's second nap, that I could read again. It comes and goes.

I succumbed to a free sample and bought the Kindle version of Midnight Riot. I should be ashamed to fit so well into the demographic :"Even if you've read all of the Dresden Files/Sandman Slim/Felix Castor/etc. novels, you'll still find plenty of originality and cleverness here." But if my perfectly fitting means more excellent yarns with intelligent characters and smart-ass remarks I guess I am happy about it.