Just Sitting

Uffda. I'm glad that's over. We can all draw a deep breath now. I can't believe how tired and sore I am when all I did was sit most of the day.

SisOne had her surgery today and it went well. The 'sentinel' lymph node had no cancer present. Of course there is still a bit of danger in recovery, but, hey, not dying on the operating table is a positive thing.

After SisOne was installed in a semi-private room the whole throng of visitors was allowed in...six of us. Every one else whispered to her, but I spoke right up and told her a funny story. I was granted a tiny bit of a smile. Pretty good for a gal who just had five hours of surgery.

The story I told her was about my second husband's grandmother. Gramma O had abdominal surgery. To keep abdominal muscles from stiffening the nurses want a patient to cough. Coughing is painful, to say the least. Gramma O had worked in that hospital as a nurse's aide for years so she knew very well what they wanted. She played possum. One of the nurses told us outside the room that Gramma O wouldn't cough for them, so could we tell her a joke and get her to laugh? Because laughing uses the same abdominal muscles that coughing does...

A quandary for us: What jokes did we know that we could tell an elderly lady? Finally grandson decides he can tell her the 'Frayed Knot' joke cuz it doesn't have any dirty words in it.

As soon as the nurse was gone Gramma O opened her eyes and I scolded her for being so unhelpful. She just smiled at me. I told her she still had to listen to the joke. Grandson told it well, and she did laugh. And it did hurt. But probably not as much as coughing.

It's good that the story about Gramma O made SisOne smile. It was twenty years ago that I heard the 'Frayed Knot' joke and I don't remember the punchline.