perpetual motion

    I guess I assumed that Tommy's 6-week recovery from his hip surgery would involve mostly resting and keeping his hip immobile so that it could heal.  In other words, I was imagining 6 weeks of Netflix heaven.
    Au contraire.
    Apparently to recover from this kind of surgery you have to hit the ground exercising.
    Before he left the hospital Tommy was instructed that every day, starting from the day he arrived home from the hospital, he needs to:
    1.  Do six different exercises 10 times each, 3 times a day.
    2.   Stick his leg into a continuous passive motion machine that keeps bending and unbending his knee. His knee needs to be  in this bending machine 4 to 6 hours a day.
    3.  Ice his hip 20 minutes out of every hour.
    4. Practice walking around the house on his crutches whenever he's not engaged in any of the above.
    5. Ditch the Netflix.
   The logistics of how all this activity is supposed to fit together is a bit problematic, especially trying to fit in all that bending and icing.  And it was even so much more problematic that first day home when Tommy,  who his whole life has been the avatar of cooperation, strove to follow his exercise instructions before he had his pain meds squared away. 

I took this picture and posted it on Facebook to let everyone know about Tommy's surgery.  But I took it before his pain meds had kicked in,  which was a mistake,  as his sisters  found the picture so distressing that one by one they called, upset to see him appearing to be  in so much pain. 
     I promised to post another one as soon as he was feeling better and the next day I did post the one below, which made everyone feel better.

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    In any case, though he was following the doctor's instructions I wondered if Tommy  might have overdone the physical therapy a bit that first day because that night while he was sitting on the bed we'd set up in the family room, which is his designated recovery room for the next few weeks,  he noticed that his surgical wound was leaking.  It had leaked through his water-proof bandage, the compression ace bandage wrapped around his leg, his shorts, the bed sheet,  mattress cover, right through to the mattress where it left a blood stain about 6" by 12".
    I called the doctor again and talked to a resident who said not to worry, just take off the bandage then wipe around the wound with a dry sterile gauze then cover the wound with another sterile gauze and some tape and all should be well.
    And after that all was.
    Except for the mattress, which was brand new.
    But even the mattress story has a happy ending, and if any one happens to be interested in finding out how to totally get a semi-fresh blood stain out of a mattress then read on.  Otherwise you might want to stop right here.  ;)

   Anyway, so  I went on the internet to see if there was any advice on how to salvage my mattress and, wonder of wonders - truly, is there any answer that can't be found on the internet? -  there was! 
    I found the  instructions  on Wikihow.com:
    First I blotted the stain with a wet (cold water!) paper towel then I blotted it with a dry paper towel.  Then I repeated the process and kept repeating it until the stain was gone and the mattress felt dry to the touch.  I spent about half an hour wet-then-dry-blotting the stain, and, tedious and time-consuming as the process was, dang, it worked! Look:

This is the mattress after I finished blotting it.  Can you even see where the blood stain was?
(It was close to the front edge and just a little right of center).  

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Anyway, here's the site just in case anybody ever needs it:

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Blood-Stains-from-a-Mattress#Blotting_Before_Stain_Removal_sub

Happy weekend to all! 8)