Quiet morning, haircuts and regurgitated girlie things . . .

Woke up this morning to go peek at Bob and nearly stepped on a regurgitated tampon in middle of the living room rug. (Insert collective reader gagging here.) See, a few days ago—week ago? Two weeks? don't remember—Rocco had slipped into the bathroom when I had my back turned, snagged the tasty tidbit out of the trash and dashed under the coffee table with his treasure clamped tight in his mouth. He actually snarled and snapped at me when I tried to pry it from his jaws, so I just walked away, hands in the air. Fine, you little b&st@rd, I told him, go ahead and eat it. I don't have time for this shit. . . and have worried about it since, thinking it'd end up blocking his intestines, prevent him from eating, pooping, or doing anything and one day, he'd just die on me, death by tampon. Funny thing thing is, it prevented none of that. He ate just fine. Pooped just fine. Drank just fine. Has been crazy as ever. Made me wonder if perhaps I just imagined the whole thing. From what I found this morning, obviously not. At least now I don't have to worry about him dying by tampon choking. Note to self: close the damn bathroom door . . .

Our first full day home from the hospital as been so nice, but I have to continually remind myself to breathe . . . Bob said he slept through the night quite well (got up once—I bolted out of bed when I heard him, ran out to the living room to see what was going on. "Ummmm. . . just changing positions, Jen . . . go back to bed," he told me. . . ) He had a nice breakfast, rested a bit after that, then we took a walk down our road, to the "t" and back again, one of our neighbors popped her head out the front door and hollered, "Welcome home, Bob! Now make sure your stay there for a while!"

He's done well with eating, resting and keeping active all day, without overdoing it . . . up and down stairs, "reacquainting" himself with the house, his office, the checkbook, he said . . . we had to jump the Subaru (haven't driven it in over a week), figured it has a bad battery, so Bob had his dad on the phone for some sage fatherly advice about cars and batteries and chargers and all. . . I told him it almost felt normal, like our old life was back, even just a little bit, with him moving about the house, doing some of the things he used to do, which seems so long ago that he has been able to do any of it, I was out pulling weeds in the yard, walking the dogs, checking in on him now and then.

Bob even got a haircut out on the deck today—I had trimmed it up, as it was starting to grow in since he hasn't had chemo in a long time; had lots of wispy, spindly strands that needed trimming . . . I never thought he would look good with such short hair, but I've been proven wrong. I love it! See for yourselves . . .

One of his docs from this most recent hospitalization called just to check in, see how things are going . . . we have at least a few appointments this week, one with the new primary doc who will be overseeing all of Bob's care, one with oncology. . . supposed to be seeing cardiology within the week . . . surgery still isn't even in the conversation, given the events of the past few weeks. . .

Dinner on the deck again tonight, steak stir fry with lots of veggies and brown rice . . .now, we're settling down, Dirty Dancing on AMC, candles glowing instead of lights in the house . . . the hardest thing is to truly relax, enjoy the moment, given the events of the past weeks, months . . . the hardest thing, to put the guards down and simply be . . . we're trying, but god is it hard . . .