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"The nurse said not to take the bandages off for 24 hours," my wife scolded. "What part of '24 hours' did you not understand?"
"Hmmm, well, I saw that as more of a guideline," I replied. "I'm a fast clotter. The bleeding had stopped so I didn't think the bandages were really needed anymore, and this way more healing oxygen gets to the wound."
"You just wanted to see your nose," Honey said. "If your sutures get infected, it's your own fault."
Of course I wanted to see it: the surgical repair to my nose, the stitches around the skin graft above my right nostril, and the chunk of skin returned to fill the scabbed-over divot between my eyebrows. For three weeks I have had to wear a skin graft feeder, a strip of my own living, bleeding forehead tissue, laid across the bridge of my nose. For three long weeks I had to go out in public looking like I had a Vienna sausage strapped to my face, and the COVID mask didn't even cover it.
Now it was gone, and I was thrilled.
"I heard Grandma. She's mad because you were supposed to keep the bandages on for 24 hours," said Lamppost Head when I checked on him in the tub. He was staying overnight with us because Honey was taking him to the orthodontist on the morrow.
Was it worth the effort to explain Greenwich Mean Time to a boy who is busily coating himself in bubble bath bubbles? I tried anyway.
"I got out of surgery at 11:30 this morning. That was several hours ago, and you know how the Earth is divided into time zones? Right now on the other side of the world it is already tomorrow, a new day, and days are 24 hours long, so there you go. As far as people in China are concerned my surgery happened yesterday. I think Grandma is overreacting a little. Understand?"
Lamppost Head nodded slowly, bubbles dripping off his chin.
I TOOK SELFIES of my repaired face and sent them out to friends and family.
Shark texted back that The 747, Lamppost Head's brother, looked at the picture and was sad. He told his mom he missed Grandpa's sausage nose.
It's my own fault. After the feeder strip stopped bleeding so much, it was fat and pink and seemed quite happy in its new location on my face. I would stroke it and call it pet names when the grandsons were around.
"Shhhh," I whispered aside to them. "It's sad, but in a few days that strip of skin will be cut off and thrown away. It doesn't know it's going to die so don't say anything."
The nurses told my wife they had to hold my arms down during the second surgery, just as they did in the first, because I kept reaching for my face. It was very encouraging to me that even though I was under general anesthesia, my subconscious mind mobilized a defense when Dr. DiBasal started cutting.
"They said you were very strong and they had to call for help," Honey said.
That's one of the nicest things anyone ever said about me.
I want this line in my obituary: "Even while unconscious, Miller fought in two consecutive defensive actions against superior numbers and was grievously wounded."
On the way home from surgery, Honey stopped at Davis Drug and Sundry to fill my script for antibiotics and a painkiller. The Vicodin kicked in fast. After a two-hour nap I woke up feeling great, and so happy that the sausage was gone from my nose.
I laughed and sang and danced a little jig around Honey, giving her kisses and more kisses, and thanking her for taking care of me. "I'm happy, happy, happy! It's gone, it's gone, and I'm so happy!"
HONEY WAS A LITTLE confused. "For three weeks you said you felt fine and didn't mind having that thing on your face because it had to be done," she reminded me.
"Oh, I was just being stoic for the grandsons," I said. "I hated it. The second night after surgery I was suicidal, lying awake all night convinced I would get gangrene and my face would rot off. That was the only really bad time, and it may have been just the oxycodone talking, but heck yes I hated it."
It would not do, would it, to have the grandsons think that Grandpa was ever frightened or depressed over a little thing like outpatient surgery. A Grandpa should be the closest thing to Superman they will ever know.
The Vicodin that helped make me so happy is probably what also kept me awake for the next 24 hours - the real next 24 hours – which I suppose was poetic justice. The next afternoon I was finally drifting off to sleep in my recliner when I opened my eyes to find Seed and The Favorite closely studying my stitched-up face.
"Looks good, Dad," said Seed. The Favorite gave me a smile and a thumbs-up, then hurried into the kitchen with his brothers Rufus and Bob for the special dinner of fried rice and farm vegetables that Honey had promised Seed for his birthday. He turned 42. How has our little boy become so old?
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(Fred Miller's new book of 100 stories, "Falling Under Honey's Spell," is $10, available locally at Connie's Kitchen, Davis Bros. Pharmacies, Frank's Pastry, Giant Eagle Calcutta, Green Marble Coffee, Museum of Ceramics, Pottery City Antique Mall, and at fredmilleratlarge.com.)