weekend dirt, today hospital

Dad's finally having surgery on his back today. It's less invasive than originally planned (1-2 hours rather than 4), so it's not a huge deal that he's still a little anemic. He claims he will be leaving the hospital tomorrow, and after how energetic he was last time I kind of believe him. The goal is not to eliminate all pain, since unfortunately there's arthritis in there and still not a lot they can do, but to restore mobility. Good thoughts are still very welcome, of course, and I'll update later.

It was a perfect weekend for allergic girls to dig outdoors, since we're between tree pollen and grass pollen surges, and it rained a bunch to wash away what pollen there was. On Saturday, Wim and I finished cutting up the black locust saplings I felled a couple of weeks ago, then weeded out a bunch of those nasty pallid bindweed roots. Then I got a little more ambitious and cleared a bed in the vegetable garden (formerly upstairs neighbors' domain, but their tenant does not want), into which I moved the rhubarb that was getting shaded out by raspberries in the front and some strawberries ditto. On Sunday, I returned to the vegetable garden and cleared another bed: two kale seedlings and I think a wee carrot were in there amid the weeds, so I kept them, and I added a purple artichoke and yellow-pod snow peas and shiso, then stuck sprouted garlic cloves in a sort of sidebar bed. It's fun adapting my planting to existing structures. And the Oregon Giant snow peas now have strings. I gave the new peas some old tomato cages to climb on, so we'll see if they like that.

Plus the confocal really is fixed, hurrah!

dad remains curiously strong

The man is a Clydesdale. Surgery at 11, out of recovery by 2, eating solid food by 4. Trying to get the nurse to let him up to walk around pretty much immediately upon arriving in the room. (That nurse proved completely humorless and was replaced before the shift ended; causation unclear but a wise decision if that was why.) He "want[ed] out of this fucking joint" so was pushing hard for getting to go home today, but no one was about to allow that. I do believe he will be home tomorrow, and I have plans to visit him Thursday afternoon since Mom is leaving town for a previously planned trip.

The surgery placed cross-braces between lumbar vertebrae 3, 4, and 5, one of which cracked slightly during the procedure; that's not too unusual and shouldn't affect the overall success, but it made me twitchy to hear. The idea is to keep the vertebrae from squishing the nerve processes leading outward when he stands. It's not clear yet whether his back pain will be improved, since obviously he's been cut up right there and still has a drain in place (with a weird little donut-shaped receptacle). He was getting good drugs, though, so at least it shouldn't hurt worse. Fingers crossed that it heals well and helps a lot!