I actually spent all of Friday out of bed. I got up, made breakfast, checked my e-mail, and got ready to visit Dr. Briscoe. This would be the second time I’d left the house since I got back from the hospital last Thursday :)! Michael and I went to the Greek and then the Deep End Thursday night to visit with Nikki, Peter and a bunch of friends. The car ride is always an adventure, because our driveway is so ridiculously bumpy. Michael apologiizes for not being able to keep the car stable. I can actually laugh without pain, now, so this twisting and jarring in the seat is not a huge problem any more, but I can feel it stretching those tender muscles.

Dr. Briscoe is the coolest. He took my tape off my incision and it didn’t hurt a bit. Now I have this long, smiley-face scar on my lower abdomen. He poked around a bit, said things were looking good, but that there was still a LOT of healing going on in there (the surgery was pretty extensive), and that I still needed to take it easy. He asked me what I use for scars and I said “Vitamin E”. He gave me the impression that that was not enough, so I said, “Is there something better?” And he suggested something called “Mederma” which you can get over the counter at the pharmacy. He said, “It’s expensive, but you’re worth it! Start using it now, and when your scar heals, it’ll be hardly visable.” A few weeks back, I saw some scar lotions and things at our regular drug store back counter and figured we could get some there on our way home. So we went in and looked, but did not see that particular product. I asked the lady behind the counter and she said they keep it up front. Kind of strange for certain ones to be back here, but others to be up front, but oh, well. Sure enough, I asked the lady up front and she produced two different sizes. I didn’t see the prices, but chose the smaller one anyway. It was $19.99 for 0.5 oz. Okay, we’ll give it a shot.

Michael paid for that and a couple of boxes of herbal tea (the pharmacy has the best prices on island for Celestial Seasonings teas), since I had parted with $97.00 at K-Mart just a few minutes before. Then we went to town. We were on a roll. His parents had given him a gift card for the SCUBA store, and he’d been wanting/needing a diveskin for winter swimming/snorkeling for quite a while, so while they were still having their “September ‘S’ Sale”
(everything in the store with an “s” in it’s name - except SCUBA the dog - is on sale), we’d take a look. He found something he liked and some sunblock and we were outta there. Next stop - Centipede, to look for flip flops. Emmy has been gnawing on a couple of Michael’s pairs and she bit through the strap on my favorite cute little ones while I was in the hospital. Way to go, Em (BAD DOG!!!). They had some nice ones for MD and some cute Cobian’s for me. I had some like this a couple of years ago and don’t remember what happened to them, but we’ll have to be vigilant about hiding them from Eminem fer sure.

After that, well, we were in town, and shopping can be a VERY thirsty job. So we dragged ourselves kicking and screaming (riiight) to the brewpub. They didn’t have my favorite Hammerhead pale ale again, but the waiter suggested that the czech pilsner was similar, so I gave it a shot. Michael had the ESB (extra special bitter). Both were YUMMMMY! And, we got to have some fried pickles this time :)!! The breeze felt great and it was awesome to be up and out and about again, like a normal person. Doctor Briscoe said, though, and I DO agree, that it’s boring to be like normal people. I guess I’m just looking forward to being MY normal self, which is far from anyone else’s normal.

We headed home after sipping, slurping and munching, and Michael went outside to do some tree trimming. This stupid orange parasitic vine has begun to attack one of the mango trees. I’ve got to call the tree doctor on Monday. We REALLY need a lot of help now. It’s getting way out of control. While he was out there, I heated up some dinner and after we ate, we watched a really weird, awful movie. My belly started hurting at this point and I had to get horizontal. But that was the first time since I had gotten up in the morning. Yay!! Soon, I’ll be back to my version of normal!!

Tags: St. Croix

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