Post Op

“Will this hurt when the drug wears off?” I asked David an hour or two after my surgery.“Nah," said the former football star. "It's just a cut. Cuts don't hurt."Actually it  hurts like a mothuh as the saying goes. So I turned to the boyfriend  of my girl Annie. He's a firefighter/medic.  "John, am I supposed to call the doctor? This really hurts.""Of course it hurts! They took a three-inch chunk out of your leg!"We're with John and Annie right now and in a few hours our other girl Carrie will arrive with her Chris and their two little ninja-boys. In this calm-before-the-storm-time I'm studying the post-op lit which says to take Tylenol, which I never do, relying instead on my best friend Excedrin, and occasionally going over to Advil because Dave takes Advil before playing golf.... BUT! you can’t take Excedrin or Advil in these first few days so here I am downing my two capsules of Tylenol every four to six hours. As it happens Annie is under the weather today too with a cough and bad sore throat and just now said, "I want to take some Tylenol too but John says I shouldn’t if  I want to have wine tonight."‘What?” I said. "Wha-a-a-a-t?"“Yeah, it’s too much for your liver when you have both.""Seriously?" I said. "Last night  I couldn’t sleep between the pain and a racing brain and I finally got up at 3am, tossed back two Tylenols and half a Trazadone from an '06 prescription and downed a couple of quick fingers of VO."“Then what did you do, smooth it all down with a hit of meth?”These kids: wiseguys all of 'em. They're bossing me pretty good right now but it actually feels kind of good to me, weak and wounded and ill-informed as I am. Plus I think all this self-moody absorption is kind of fun. Next up: hair-twirling and thumb-sucking.