Ten Bullets, a Marshmallow and Two Missing Chickens
Recently, a loved one had unexpected surgery that I would consider a bit complicated. The surgery went much longer than the doctor had anticipated and stated the recovery would be lengthy and painful. Oh boy, pain medications already made them nauseous, but needed them to stay ahead of the pain.
After they were out of recovery and back to the room, it was essential to keep on a pain management schedule, as ordered by the medical staff. Along with the medication, we knew there might be side effects from the anesthesia. Random things came out of the patient’s mouth that had my family, the doctors, nurses and aides laughing.
One of the side effects of medication is often not being able to, ummm…let’s refer to it as “doing your business”….HA. It might have been the anticipation of having to get up out of bed and painfully make the trek across the room. I’m sure there are other reasons as well, but that’s probably the worst one to manage when you aren’t able to get up without assistance.
Anyhow, in the following days we would get reports about the successes and challenges of the patient. On one particular day they were going over the last two days and blurted out, “Yesterday was ten bullets and then today a marshmallow!” WHAT? Oh my gosh we laughed and laughed; something that was needed to break the stress of hospital stay and severe pain.
The same night as the ten bullets and a marshmallow claiming incident, my sister and I ended up leaving much later than anticipated, and had planned on eating out, but because of the hour, decided we were too tired to sit at a restaurant, and instead would make dinner at my parents home. Earlier in the week my sister-in-law had stocked their refrigerator with a few things, including a roasted chicken. Her and my brother told us about the new chicken and the pre-existing roasted chicken that probably needed to be thrown out, since no one had been home all week.
They were both adamant that we eat the chicken……alright already…..chicken was in our future. By the time we left the hospital and arrived at my parent’s home, we were both starving and couldn’t wait to sit down, relax and have a meal. As we opened the fridge, expecting to see two roasted chickens…..we didn’t see either one. Hmmm…..OK, maybe in the fridge in the garage…..nope, not there either.
It was odd…..we must have looked three or four times, just in case we missed two, complete, roasted chickens from view. How do you misplace two chickens? We quickly sent a text to my brother and he hadn’t a clue where they could have gone to. My other brother was out of town……very perplexing…LOL.
We rummaged around to find anything else that wasn’t frozen and only came up with cheese and bread. Grilled cheese sandwiches it was. For two days the mystery of the missing chickens escaped us. We learned, once my brother came back in town, it was also mentioned to them about the chickens and decided to take the new one with them on the road so it wouldn’t go to waste, and they discarded the older bird….haha.
Life is often comical, and I’m thankful for unexpected laughter. Taking those not-so-funny experiences and blending them with the unexpected and unusual events, is often a blessing in disguise. Do you actively look for them? Next time you hear something like “ten bullets, a marshmallow and two missing chickens,” you’ll know life is shining brightly through the clouds.
oxoxo…..Sheryl