At any rate, we both made the drive down with empty tummies, as he wasn't allowed to eat after midnight, and I wasn't going to torture him with food he couldn't eat. There was a choice parking spot that just happened to be waiting for us, so I got a chance to practice my parallel parking with the help of the car's wee camera mounted above the license plate. I situated myself within the boundaries of the disabled spot (as both Himself and the Queen Mother are Officially Disabled), so I will take that as a win. ;)
We were a little late to his appointment, but the waiting room was all but empty, and remained empty for most of Himself's session. Once he had been taken back to start the scan, I went down to the coffee shop and got a Chai Tea Latte (with soymilk - they aren't yet offering coconut milk at the VAMC) with an apple-cinnamon muffin. I ate the muffin, then went back up and made myself at home in the waiting room, where I chose my next mandala to color in and went to work. I realized that I had forgotten to pack one of the small pencil sharpeners in my pencil box, so a few small places of coloring needed to wait until I could get home and give my pencils sharper points.
About two hours later, Himself emerged from his procedure, and we went down to the main cafeteria to see what they had for lunch. I got a veggie hummus wrap (which wasn't bad, it just had a LOT of hummus in it) and a bag of chips, while Himself grabbed a turkey sandwich to go with his chips. We split a chocolate pudding parfait for dessert. One thing I can say about the VA's cafe, the food is rather cheap, and you often get what you pay for. Sometimes that's a good thing; other times, not so much. Today it was decent.
I saved about a third of the wrap for later, and we headed to the second appointment of the day: a follow up with General Surgery, the department that had performed Himself's first surgery: the removal of his colon and appendix, the latter having become the size of a cucumber. (Apparently the cancer had jumped first thing into his appendix, instead of spreading more widely through his body, which is probably one of the reasons he's still alive today.) I colored a bit more of my mandala as we waited, and also as he was examined.
They didn't find anything untoward, so we made a final stop at the coffee shop (for his strategic caffeine infusion), and wrangled our way around some road construction to make our way home. See, the VA Medical Center is on the University of Califonia, San Diego campus, and the trolley is being extended from San Diego up to UCSD, the VAMC, and La Jolla. This necessitates detours from time to time, which snarls up traffic, which was compounded today by students returning from Winter Break.
We got home a bit late, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been, for the Queen Mother said she was not feeling well, and had not felt well all day. Instead of her regular dinner, I heated up some chicken broth for her to drink. She did later perk up enough to ask for her usual chocolate ice cream, though. Himself went down to San Diego for a meeting, and I stayed home to keep an eye on mom. I later grabbed a package of mock chicken "morsels," heated them up in the oven, and had them with some rice, along with the rest of my lunch. After dinner, I sharpened several of my pencils and colored in the smaller spaces that needed sharp points. Here's what my mandala looked like when I finished for today:
I expect to color in some more when we return to the VAMC on Wednesday for the next round of appointments.
Tomorrow is appointment-free, so I'm declaring it an "Administration Day" to use for phone calls and to go through the various letters and papers that have been quietly waiting for me to tend to them. I will need to do a bit of grocery shopping as well, but that won't take all day, and will probably serve as a nice change of pace.
Thus do we move forward into the new year... :)
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