As of he date of this1 post, I am as old as my brother Henry was when he died in 2018. Still, when I think of him, I see my older brother. But now he’ll never be older than me.

I had thought to write more about Henry, but other things occupy my mind right now. On Monday morning Leah and I arrived at the hospital around 5:15 am for Leah’s surgery. After she went back to the operating room, I had to rush home to let the dogs out. The doctor called as I was on my way back to the hospital and said everything went well. She was in her room before 10. She was groggy for a while but seemed to be coming around pretty quickly. I went home for lunch, and when I got back to the hospital she had been walking around and seemed alert and aware.

I had to go home again to feed the animals and walk the dogs around 5 pm. When I got back to the hospital, Leah didn’t know where she was. We (the nurses and I) kept telling her that she was at the hospital; she said she knew that, but she seemed unable to hold the idea in her head. She would acknowledge that she was in the hospital, and then say she needed to get her shampoo, or toothbrush, or hand lotion out of the bathroom — our bathroom at home.

As I said in an earlier post, post-operative cognitive decline is a known problem. It can be temporary, long term, or permanent. I don’t know what to expect in this case. As I write this at a little before midnight, she is sleeping. I hope she’s better when she wakes up.