My man is BACK!

Sorry—this was going to be my last post last night, and then my computer decided to hate me, and I was too tired to do a restart.

This is how the rest of the surgery day went:

The surgery was done around 5 last night, but it took three hours to get to see him. I'll spare you the details—let’s just say there were some miscommunications all around.

When we finally got in to the ICU, he was awake and alert, and he wanted his pen and paper right away. He drew a bunch of hearts with initials in them, indicating all the people he loved. He tried drawing a bunch of other things, which we couldn’t decipher—but that's Vic. Anybody can tell. He wanted to show. 

Speaking of showing, the first thing he asked me to do was take pictures of him—ever the photographer. He looks a little like Frankenstein’s monster, but all of these wounds will heal.

He has been super frustrated by not being able to speak, he hate hate HATES being dependent on people to do things for him ("This was my biggest fear," he wrote), he is apologizing for being a pain in the ass, and he already thinks recovery is taking too long.

We're trying to remind him that all of this is temporary. So far, he is having none of it. And it’s only going to get worse as his frustration increases along with his pain level.

And yet.

He can’t speak, but his personality is coming through loud and clear. He may have lost half of his tongue and a bunch of his lymph nodes, but he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. He has already figured out how to use the TV remote. Sure, there will be some changes—the new normal, as I mentioned in one of my other posts—but underneath, he’s still Mailman Vic, Victor Arlove, Boo, Veeeeeec, Uncle Vic, Gunc, Dad, Pop, brother, friend. And that will never change.

Vic's Bitmoji will have to do until he is more ... photogenic.