As a writer, I know that one doesn't have a decent narrative without setbacks. The plucky heroine doesn't wriggle her way into a reader's heart by simply walking from Point A to Point B. She mustencounter setbacks along the way. 

You know where this is headed, right?

I had a really fun morning. I ate a strangely lumberjack-like breakfast (yay steroids!), immensely enjoyed a visit from two lovely ladies from the island, and did some silly dancing which would've seemed impossible only a few days ago. I then made a quick trip downstairs for x-rays (I call these "photo shoots") and performed a completely sexless and purely perfunctory shower scene that included Derek and my blonde Occupational Therapist named Heidi. You guys, I shaved my legs for the first time since July 21. I no longer even have a pelt!

My Physical Therapist DeeDee came by to watch me climb some stairs because that's apparently what people do for fun around here and also because I have to be able to climb stairs to enter my home and to get to my Recovery Room (the RR). And suddenly, Tenley (Dr. Masri's P.A.) appeared from nowhere with the tremendous news that the Oozing Chest Tube of Death that we only thought we had written out of the story in our last chapter was going to make a scene-stealing return to the stage/page.

Ummm... Do you have whiplash? Because I know I do.

When we last saw the Loser Oozer, he was being removed because he was an unnecessary and very literal pain in my side. But as it turns out, it's not that there was no fluid to be sucked from that lung-- it's a virtual cornucopia of gore in there. The Oozing Chest Tube of Death just sucked at sucking. Guh! YOU HAD ONE JOB!

So tomorrow I have to get a new tube placed. This means I go back to being attached to a pump and lose my newfound independence. For whatever reason, when you're attached to a pump, they won't let you get in and out of bed 25 times per hour to pee without a nurse helping you (cough, cough slowing you down).

The new tube will be smaller. Everyone, and I do mean every single person here at the hospital who knows I'm getting a new tube (and is aware of my decidedly nonplussed reaction) has called it a "pigtail," as if that makes it more attractive. You would think they'd instinctively know that a girl who clearly grew up being hailed as "Ogg the Hog" wouldn't be flattered by the porcine descriptor. Well, you'd be wrong.

Now the best case scenario is that I will be released next Tuesday or Wednesday. 

I'm frustrated, angry, worried, frightened, sad and mostly just crouched over one of my adult coloring books with a pink pencil clenched between my teeth, sweating profusely in a rage of 'roids and coloring like I'm riding for the border and there's a bounty on my head.