Monday, June 22, 2009

Sunday June 21st

So, Sunday - wonderful day for Fathers has arrived. Sundays are really easy going and open-scheduled with not much therapy in the works. I stayed in bed until about 9 o'clock, then headed to the canary room to eat my breakfast. Meanwhile, my parents and sisters headed off to church, to a nearby cathedral that is actually under construction right now. It is a hot day in the 80's. Thank goodness we are right near the lakefront or it could be really bad, sounds like it hit 92 inland a bit. Shortly after I finished breakfast, my parents showed up from church and the plan for today was to order pizza from a local delicious Chicago style restaurant called Geovannies. While we were waiting for the pizza, every Sunday a different nurse takes turns presenting a hot topics lecture - this week's was on bladder control. You can only imagine how interesting a presentation on your bladder and different ways of controlling it could be. So we all sat through and listened to the wonderful bladder presentation. It took about 20 minutes and she was through her power point. Most likely because it was father's day there were only two other participants besides the Hippert family plus Mark and Kalli listening to this wonderful world of bladders.

Then, of course the card playing began. We started up a game of Tricks, in which we didn't get real far for around noon pizza arrived. One thin crust, one mega thick Chicago style crust. Really gives a new meaning to pizza pie. This pizza is like two inches thick and just full of cheese and meat. Pizza was delicious and it was great spending time with my Dad on Father's Day. Once we were done with the meal, Theresa, Dad, Laura and Grey (my little 1.5 year old niece) loaded up in the car and were heading back to Appleton to get together with the rest of the Hippert gang at my brother's house to continue the Father's Day celebration.

Once the gang departed, Kalli, Mark Lee, Maeghan Verhagen who lives here in Chicago, and my cousin Bill Hippert all headed to a close by AMC to catch the latest and greatest movie, Hangover. The AMC was only about six blocks away and completely wheel chair accessible. We went and got our tickets and realized we had about a half an hour before the show so we ventured over to a really cool bowling alley/billiards/bar/lounge called Lucky Strike and sat down for a quick drink before the movie. Kalli made me get a root beer because I am still using narcotics, controlling my pains from surgery. Although, I am doing a really good job of slowly weening off of them for I have gone two nights now without my 12 hour release morphine and without any of the painkillers throughout the night. And, I have been stretching my day time narcos - some sort of painkiller - as long as I can, going between 6 and 8 hours and I could get them every 4 if I would like. My goal is to get completely off of them in the next two weeks. This will increase my energy due to the drowsiness they cause and also let the poop keep rolling (they make you a little constipated).

After the movie, which by the way, was fricking hilarious. There were many points in the movie where I would kind of hold my neck, trying to brace it, while my whole body was shaking from laughing. We headed over to a nearby Potbelly sub shop to grab a quick bite to eat before bringing me back to RIC where I start my nightly routine.

Another great day and it really makes me realize how lucky we are to have the location in which RIC is placed, being right downtown, near Michigan Avenue and all that this area has to offer. How many places could you be where you have got, literally 50 - 100 restaurants and kinds of things to do within a wheel chairs pushing distance? Hope everyone was able to spend some time with their fathers and I just want to say Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Andrew!

    I was just checking in on you. It sounds like you are making progress. I pray for you each day. Diane Walters

    ReplyDelete