Homecoming, Ormond-by-the-Sea, Oct. 4, 2024

I returned home yesterday, Oct. 4. It was day 25 of my stay at Advent Health Daytona Beach. The fresh air was bracing, although the temp was a warm 85. It felt like heaven to me.

Chris was driving. It will be awhile before I’m confident enough to get behind the wheel. I have my Florida driver’s license and about 58 years experience behind the wheel. I just don’t have my wits about me. I just got over a nasty case of septicemia or blood poisoning. I read all the physician and nurses’ notes in my online chart. A potent staph infection from a leg would had entered my bloodstream and propagated until it caused my body to seize up and stopped my heart – twice. Due to quick action by my wife Chris, The ER staff came running, pulled me back from the brink, and I began what I guess I can call my healing journey. It really was a giant shit sandwich that’s still going to take a couple months to recover from.

First the good news: Here I am. I need a walker to get around but I’m getting around, slowly. Seems that when my body got whacked by microscopic bugs, it forgot how to take one step after the other. I’m one of the lucky ones. First, I will walk again probably with help. Second, I’m still on Planet Earth to do so. Maybe that’s first, I still get a bit confused by priority lists. When I first awoke in ICU, I had no idea where I was nor who I was. Well, I knew my name but that’s about it.

Nurse: "What month is it?"

Me: "Uh..."

Nurse: "Do you know the month?"

Me: "August?"

Nurse: "Close. September."

The last half of my hospital stay was in the excellent Advent Health Therapy Center which occupies the entire 12^th floor of Advent Daytona.  The staff is first-rate: physicians, nurses, techs, physical and occupational therapists. When you go to the twelfth floor, you sign up for OT and PT for four to five hours daily. You’re assigned exercises to do in your room. The nurses are always there to help and a more empathetic yet stern bunch would be hard to find. I love them all.

My first task after I got out was to round up a seafood meal that was on the healthy side and sit down with my wife at home and enjoy. My choice was the planked salmon dinner at Stonewood Grill & Tavern with shrimp and scallop skewers on the side. I didn’t so much eat it as swim through it. A pleasurable swim to be sure, one topped off by Key Lime Pie. It was a big deal because Chris and I arrived in Ormond Beach on August 24 and were busy getting organized until Sept. 9 when venomous bacteria came to call. I had not had a single seafood meal nor had I been to the beach. There was a big old ocean out there but it might as well have been Wyoming’s Red Desert.

So I’m home. Now what?