My day in bed wasn’t as bad or as boring as I’d expected it to be. I spent most of it sleeping, with either Shane or Jenny waking me up to eat some soup or take my medication or some other nurse-like thing they wanted to do. I put up with it. There wasn’t a lot I could do about it even if I wanted to, and I had to concede that it was a little nice to be taken care of. They’d all done so much of that over the years that it usually drove me bananas, but when I was actually sick it wasn’t so bad.

After Alice and I had gotten married, I’d sometimes come home from a commentating engagement or some other event and be worn down. The chemo had done a number on my immune system, and I picked things up a lot more easily than I ever had before it, so sometimes I’d get sick while traveling. Nothing big, usually just colds and sometimes a mild virus, and I was always better within a few days. Still, Alice would be incredibly overprotective of me until I recuperated, and the rest of them had started to do it too.

I generally hated being taken care of even when I was sick, so it bothered me. But somehow, having Shane and Jenny there to help me was nice. Maybe it was because I understood how important it was to actually get better this time. Before, I’d always sort of allowed things to heal on their own, although whether that was an actual belief of mine or I just didn’t want to be babied I’ll never know. This time, I knew it was imperative that I listen to what my friends and family told me no matter how much I didn’t want to.

It wasn’t too terribly awful. Aside from coming in to give me things I needed, Shane and Jenny left me alone to rest. I’d thought it would be difficult to do that since I’d slept nearly twelve hours the first night home, but my vigil at Alice’s bedside had drained me more than I liked to admit. My body welcomed the extra rest.

I wasn’t awake much, but Shane did come in a little after lunch to tell me that Charlie had called. He’d spoken with Dr. Hernandez, who was very happy with Alice’s progress since the surgery. He was confident that her physical therapy could start within the next week, but he wanted her to stay in her room in the ICU for at least the next four days. She was still exhausted, and he wanted her brain to have as much rest as possible before he attempted to move her to a private room. Aside from that, while there hadn’t been any sign of problems since her surgery, he wanted her kept under strict observation in the ICU for a while longer just in case.