Today is Sunday, Day 3 of my hospital visit.

Yesterday and today Song Shen brought Alana for pretty long visits, so seeing them was a welcome reprieve from a very boring hospital stay. I miss Isaac too, but we don’t think it’s a good idea to bring him into a hospital.

Aside from seeing them, I finished rereading the classic, ever-thought-provoking Brave New World (the last time I had read it was freshman year of high school), and am already halfway through Arthur C. Clark’s classic sci-fi novel, Rendezvous with Rama.

Jeremy has lent me his portable router (it uses a 4G cellular connection), so I am fortunately not without wifi in my hospital bed. This is a good thing; it means my work is largely unaffected; I just can’t meet with clients for a few workdays, which is no big deal.

As for actual treatment, I’m supposed to stay in bed as much as possible (which basically means getting up only to go to the bathroom or to take a shower), to keep the blood from surging into into my right leg, where the clot is/was. I write “is/was” because as of today, it seems way better. I’ve been taking three different pills, two each, morning and night, and also have a daily three-bag IV drip regimen. There’s also some kind of topical cream I’m supposed to apply to the swollen, veiny area of my leg twice a day. After doing all this since Friday afternoon, swelling and puffiness is down, and when I have to stand up to go to the bathroom, my leg no longer immediately lights up with pain. All signs that I’m almost ready for the surgery, I think.

The surgery was originally supposed to be Monday, but it looks like there’s no time in the doctor’s schedule until Tuesday, so I’m stuck here an extra day.

I’m told the lower half of my body will be anesthetized for the surgery (but I won’t get to watch). They’ll make some relatively small incisions on my upper leg (near my groin) and near my ankle, insert something, and then slide out the bad veins. (Apparently these shallow veins aren’t actually required for a healthy, functional leg.) I think I’ll have to stay in the hospital for about a day after the procedure, but I should be able to walk out of here, and just need to take it easy for a week or two (now more marathons for a while… ha!).