Latest on my nip and tuck. Now we are absolutely fine on the nipping , they nipped from the right ear down to the adam's apple and back up to the left ear, plenty of nipping. However when it came to the tucking we fell far short of my goals. There seem to be absolutely no tucking at all! Now I know that this surgery was meant to be a corotid artery bypass but don't you think that as long as they were cutting right there that they could pull the skin tight enough to remove some laugh lines, crows feet and old age wrinkles in the face and neck. They could have given me that as a little bonus considering the big bucks they get for this surgery. But they thought it would be a better idea to send me home looking like I had a recent head transplant. But I am good, right away I come up with a plan, once they release me from the hospital I can head for Manchester, look up some old girlfriends and with my swollen neck, full of staples, I will surely get plenty of sympathy sex.. But alas I think my doctors got wind of my plan and they hatched a plan of there own. They decided I needed to go home with a catheter in my bladder. I will spare you the details of how that is done, you can use your imagination but I will say that any man reading this right now would automatically cross his legs at this point. So my first two days after the surgery I couldn't even swallow water it was a rough two and a half days. By the end of the third day I could at least swallow water, juice and coffee. Yes! I'm on a roll, by the end of the forth day I can eat eggs, chocolate cake, pudding and soup even know it takes some hard work to get them all the way down it can be done. On the fifth day they cut me loose, I can swallow enough soft food to survive. The need to be on a soft food diet is pure torture for a meat and potato guy like myself, but we do what we must, right?. So by 12:30 pm Sunday April 10th I heard the do this, don't do that speech, and agreed to go to my sisters just and hour and a half away in Manchester for a few days and not make the two and a half hour trip home where I would be alone. Now they are satisfied that I will behave so they give me the green flag and me and my catheter head for my car. But there was one more stop in the hospital before hobbling to my car, the little general store in the main lobby to get a cup of Green Mountain coffee for the hour and a half trip to my sisters. While getting my coffee I was very, very careful to avoid the magazine rack I did not want to risk even a slight chance that I would catch a glimpse of a Playboy or Penthouse magazine. I won't explain the reason for this but I think you can figure it out. I am sure any man can. As I walk out the door of the hospital I'm thinking what would I do if some sexy young woman started dancing around me naked, I think I would have to kill her, and there is not a judge, at least a male judge in the country that wouldn't call it self defense. Come Sunday afternoon I find myself sitting at my sisters house, and spend the next two days visiting family and friends and getting used to my new equipment ie the leg bag and all night bag that collects the urine from the bladder. The reason for the two bags is the leg bag is out of sight and you are completely mobile but you have to empty the bag every one and a half to two hours. Now you wouldn't want to get up every two hours when you are trying to get some sleep to empty a urine bag so you have another bag that is bigger but not real portable, I called it my evening wear it can be hung on anything that is lower then your bladder when you lay down and you are set to go all night. [little pun there] Two days is about all I can do before I need some serious alone time. So as much as I have enjoyed the stay at my sisters house it is time for the Layz1 to head back to the Great North Woods. I'm getting carpel tunnel from typing this so lets fast forward to the end of my first full week home. The swallowing has improved a little each day and this is the day I go to get the staples and that damn catheter removed. So here I sit in that little room at the local healthcare clinic waiting for a nurse, and I didn't have long to wait and in came this sweet young nurse and tenderly went about removing the Fifty or so staples from my neck. Now she has me lay down on the examination table to get me ready to have the catheter removed. She leaves the room, I assume to get some medical supplies that she needs. Not the case in comes this middle aged nurse and without saying a word, she grabs the catheter like a wide receiver grabs a football and runs like she is running for a touchdown. I didn't even have time to get the scream out that had built up in my throat. Quicker then a hiccup the catheter and the nurse from hell were gone, all that remained from the encounter were the tears the welled up in my eyes from the quick but painful exiting of the catheter. For the first time in almost three weeks I find myself totally free. I am not tied to anything, and there is nothing tied to me. Now it's back to my place to wait for the final test and I didn't have to wait long four hours back at home and it was time to try the old plumbing. Now in the privacy of my own bathroom, I have my first successful catheter free pee. Let's hear it for the Layz1! All together now! One!….Two!…Three! "Way to go Layz1" A few more days crawl by an I feel that I am swallowing well enough to try some type of critter in a sandwich so I jump in the car and drive to Littleton and pull into the local Burger King. Timing couldn't have been better, it was just noon when I head for the counter, mouth watering in anticipation of my first taste of meat in over three weeks. I order two Wopper juniors and a small coke. I take a seat, I'm ready to eat and it was a renewed love at first bite. After the first few bites I came to realize almost everyone in the place had their eyes on me, I can understand why, I must have been quite a site. Hunched over my burger, drool running out of both corners of my mouth, eyes continually on the move darting left then right non stop watching, watching for another predator that might be looking to steal my kill,… I mean burger. The fact is I didn't care if I was being watch I was enjoying my wopper, that is till the incident, when one of Burger Kings help reached in front of me and without thinking I bit her and I might have growled a little. I thought she was trying to snatch a piece of my critter. I know what you are thinking out there, Go ahead! Call me an animal, but take a reality pill, anyone of you would have done the same thing in my shoes. Besides I didn't break her skin with the bite so they told me they wouldn't call the cops if I left and never came back to that Burger King. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. So that brings an end to this chapter of "As the Layz1's life turns."