Chapter Twenty-Four, part two

read Part One here

It was a long drive home from Inver Grove Heights. Boscoe couldn't get comfortable in the back of the jeep--he didn't know how to lie down with that big purple cast on his leg, he was woozy from pain medication (he was wearing a fentanyl patch on his front leg, and was pumped full of morphine), and he wouldn't put any weight on the injured leg. as we bumped along Highway 52 and rounded corners, he flew around in the back of the truck. he looked bewildered and miserable. i tried holding him steady, but he was very tippy.

to repair his torn ACL, the surgeon had put a metal plate in his leg, fastened with six screws right through the bone.

our instructions for his after care were pretty daunting, and some parts of it felt like they contradicted other parts. dont' let him jump on the furniture for at least a month, because when he jumps down he can re-injure the leg. don't let him climb stairs alone--they suggested we roll up a towel and put it under his abdomen as far back as we could get it and use it to help lift his back legs. (we never mastered this; quite frankly, his penis got in the way and we weren't quite sure how to lift him with a towel without causing, um, injury to his manly bits.)

take him for very short walks. he should be encouraged to walk on that leg, but only for very short distances. dont let him romp and play with riley. confine him to one small room so he stays quiet. recovery time: about eight weeks. yikes.

there was more--physical therapy that we were to perform on him, and other things, but for now all we could think about was getting him home and getting him quiet.

in the garage, doug lifted him out of the jeep (boscoe hates to be lifted. don't pick me up! he says) and then we had to half-carry him up the back steps. riley was waiting for us, smashed up next to the back door and peering out the window. he had been frantic for most of the day and a half that boscoe was gone; they'd never been apart before. i worried that riley was going to try to entice boscoe into playing, but he didn't. he was good --quiet. sniffed him. seemed cautious. perhaps he couldn't tell that boscoe had had surgery, but i'm pretty sure that he could tell boscoe was on drugs.

you leave me for a day and come home an addict! riley said.

we don't really have a small room that we could confine boscoe in, so we made a room out of the largish front hallway. we put his bed in there, and put the baby gate up to keep him from going up the stairs, shut the kitchen door, and the door to the porch. blocking the entrance to the living room was tougher--it's a very wide doorway, wider than any baby gate i've ever seen. doug solved the problem by taking the screen out of the front door and laying it horizontally across the doorway. it just fit.

that first day home, boscoe seemed very content to just lie in his bed there and rest. but keeping him in the front hallway for two months? this was going to be a problem.

TO BE CONTINUED