Happy Valentine's Day from the hole in my stomach

"You're going to be going crazy after about two days," B said during our ride home from the hospital on the day I was finally released. I had just learned that I could go home, but I would pretty much be on house arrest for the entire month of February. No driving. No exercise. No lifting or laundry or vacuuming. I had strict orders from my doctors to take it easy, rest up, and let my body heal and for chrissake put on some weight.

Not only have I not being going crazy, I have been flipping LOVING my recovery time. I've been reading great books. I'm finally all caught up on my New Yorker subscription. I've watched every episode of Downton Abbey. I've been Pinterest pinning to my tiny heart's content. And I enjoy my slow, slightly hunched afternoon walks just like the rest of the geriatrics in town. Not to mention, I've been busy keeping all of my closest friends informed about my daily bowel movements. This, I assume, is also what the rest of the geriatrics in town are doing.

Pretty much everyone who knows me thought FOR SURE by this time I'd be lying in a puddle of my own urine on the living room floor, poking at the hole in my stomach, and mumbling vile, barely comprehensible threats towards Kelly Ripa and Snookie. Well guess what, folks? You are looking at one happy pooper.

My intestines still don't quite work at full capacity, so each morning I start the day with a relatively flat stomach and every time I eat something, my stomach grows visibly larger, until by the time I go to bed I look like a woman somewhere around the sixth or seventh month of her pregnancy who also happens to have a giant gaping hole below her belly button.

Then, when I lie completely flat on my back in bed, my stomach really starts to work. This thing sounds like a toilet flushing. It is loud. So loud B can be in the bathroom brushing his teeth with an electric toothbrush while I am lying in our bedroom with the TV on and he will still hear my stomach roar. So loud that my stomach flushing itself is actually louder than an actual toilet flushing. So loud B could be out mowing the lawn and he would still hear it.

Not only does it growl like the motherflipping king of the jungle, but it moves. I can actually watch whatever junk is in my stomach move through my intestines. As it grumbles and squishes and flushes, my stomach starts to undulate in waves. My skin, pulled taught by the swelling, looks like the harbor water on a windy day. Basically, it looks like a little alien baby is trapped inside of me trying to get out so it can serenade us with a charming rendition of "Hello My Baby."

Thank you, YouTube, for making all of my vague, mediocre-at-best side comments more relevant.

So here we are, almost one month after I first entered the hospital, on Valentine's Day. And after all the tender loving care he's given me over the past month, there's no way to say "I love you" to my Valentine quite like "I'm sorry I can't smother you in chocolate sauce and make sweet, sweet love to you because I'll get a hernia and I have a giant hole in my stomach that occasionally leaks bodily fluid." Aaahhh romance!

Instead, we'll be celebrating by lying on the couch all night and eating candy. Which is different than every other night of the past two weeks in exactly no ways whatsoever because when you can't eat for two weeks, you tend to loose a tad too much weight and when the hell else will a 20-something female ever get the chance to enjoy putting on weight with a strict no exercising clause?

So no, I am not yet sick of being home. I am, however, slightly sick of being a human with a hole in her stomach and no I have not drawn lips around it with lipstick and pretended to make kissie noises why do you ask?

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY FROM HENRIETTA THE STOMACH HOLE! I LOVE YOU A HOLE LOT! SMOOCHES!

Ahhahahahahaha. Haha. Hahahaha. Ha. Hahahahahahahaha. Ha. On a totally unrelated note, I think I've been spending too much time by myself.

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