Mr V had a couple of hernias repaired on March 9, 2009. We won’t even discuss what happened to my back six days before his surgery. Suffice it to say, my plans of nursing him tenderly back to health were shot in the glizzfotchit.

So…there we were…about 1:30 PM on March 9, 2009, the halt and the lame. The good news is that he had Lortab, and was obedient about shuffling to the bathroom every four hours, after which he got a Lortab. You know, people in agony can be easily trained to do hellish things (like shuffling to the bathroom) if given the proper incentive - pain meds.

I’d do my hunched-over-a-cane-going-to-the-kitchen routine, right before the magic four hour time limit. I’d fix him a cup of decaf, put sweetener, spoons and gelatin in a plastic grocery bag, and wake him up on my way back. He’d go pee and we’d chit-chat for about ten minutes, then he’d shuffle, hunched over, hands guarding the incisions, back to bed.

This went on for four days - round the clock. Those were the happy times.

Then I told him he had to take a shower. Mmmm. Darned lucky I’d assumed control of the pain meds right from the git-go. People in pain can be bribed - thank goodness. He gradually improved until, by day seven, he was able to walk with only a slight forward lean. I was still insisting he cough every four hours, The contents of his lungs were shockingly loud.

I’d once lain for over an hour in a hospital x-ray, patient, waiting room, listening to four people whose lungs sounded like his. I’ve had four abdominal surgeries, so I knew just about how much he wanted to blow out his incisions with some strong coughing. Well, obviously, if his wife had gone through abdominal surgeries, he’d been there for the recovery periods. He knew he had to cough.

That was life for just over a week: sleep, drink, eat gelatin or pudding, pee, cough, back to bed. At all hours of the day and night. If you’ve been the mom of a newborn baby, you know how it works: you sleep while the baby sleeps. And my “baby” had done the same for me on four occasions…while full-time employed!

By the second week, he was walking upright most of the time. He could get his own juice, coffee, gelatin, and pudding. He peed and coughed without strong inducements. He drove the car! By week’s end, he could go to the store, fix a sandwich, and shave. He was able to take himself to his doctor appointments. Life was looking up!

Yesterday, he bought a newspaper, took the blanket out of the clothes dryer, went to the grocery store, washed some dishes, chopped veggies for soup, and took a bath. I was looking forward to waving him on his way to work this morning. You know, like baby’s first day at school. I was exhausted from having him home for two weeks, but I was pleased at how strong and resilient he’d been. He’d come through like a trooper. Honestly? He’d made me proud.

When he lost his job last October, he’d been home for two and a half weeks. It hadn’t been bad. He was busy with all the deferred maintenance around the house…then he went back to work. This time he’s been home, he’s been sitting around wanting to watch TV.

I realize that doesn’t sound like a problem. But…Ms V doesn’t do TV!

I started, several years ago, developing an allergy to TV commercials. At first, I could just mute the sound. Then I needed to change the channel to the cable TV employee channel, which has a static pic and no sound. By about six months ago I was reduced to PBS, TCM, and whatever “Cable on Demand” offerings seemed the least likely to offend my sensibilities. And my sensibilities have become more sensitive and easily bruised than I’d have believed possible just a few years ago.

TV, even non-offensive TV without commercials, sounds way worse, to me, than a combo of chalk on a blackboard and a Siamese cat in heat. It’s actually physically painful. I don’t want to be like this. I want to be numb and hypnotized, like I used to be. It is not to be so. And I’m sitting next to someone who’s all but drooling in his need to escape reality.

I escape by writing and reading. Except that I have trouble reading while my brain is being assaulted with the culture-builders of TV. I don’t want that culture and I’ve finally become incapable of tolerating the smallest dose of it. The Great Vault® is bulging with what I’ve written in the last two weeks. And, frankly, I think it’s all Grade A Fancy drivel.

So I’ve spent most of the last two weeks trying to be a compassionate nurse to a good man who just wants to escape, but he isn’t capable of escaping physically right now. I’ve been gritting my teeth and holding on for the day he goes back to work, when I can have peace and quiet, and nobody trying to sell me any products that will improve my life by making me see that up is down, hate is love, war is peace, and on and on. I’ve been waiting for today, two weeks after the surgery, the day Mr V goes back to work, Ms V’s liberation day.

He told me last night that he’ll be home another week. OMG. *sigh* And he’s just fine, not drugged, able to be himself again, not a tractable baby, a bored man who wants to watch TV. I could weep.

But, I view it as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to make more definitive (and effectual) plans about what his retirement is going to be like. Yes, gentlemen, we wives worry about how to get through our husbands’ retirements. A lot of wives keep on working. If you’ve been married for more than ten years, you already know this.

I’ve known for a number of years that “24-7 husband” is a mixed blessing. A man without structured time? Maybe for your husband, mine tends toward churlishness if he doesn’t feel useful. And, yes, I have vivid memories of being young and wanting to be together 24-7. But, life intervenes, and it changes us in ways we thought it never could…back when we were young, back when we knew we were different, back when we knew we were strong enough to defeat anything life threw at us. I remember. I used to be there. He used to be there. Now we’re here, 33 years later.

So, here we sit, two old people, physically able to carry on with daily life, nowhere near the retirement home, in front of a Joan Crawford/John Garfield movie on TV. I have an iTunes library filled with movies. But he prefers TV. I suspect it’s because the flicker rate is so soothing in its relaxing, hypnotic effect. I sit on the bed typing. He sits in my office chair, leaning forward, body poised for action, “watching” (without his eyeglasses) television.

He’ll be a caged animal for another week. I’ll be a caged animal tamer. I’m a very lucky woman to have this very good man. The truth? I’m so happy I’m almost weeping, but he worries about me if I cry, so I’m holding it in.

As I’ve pointed out before:

This is life. This is love. This is marriage.