Collarbone update

I just woke up from an hour and a half nap...I don't usually nap that long. I think all the events of the last weekend as well as a busier schedule now that I'm helping Scotty with both taking care of himself as well as doing some stuff that he used to do and now can't, has caught up with me. Scotty got out on our anniversary. They told him he could leave the following day but he ended up calling me on my way there (with a backpack loaded full of "hospital fun survivor kit 2007") to let me know the x-rays looked really good and they were going to release him early. The most exciting part of the day was when I went down to pay our bill, which they hadn't prepared us in any way for, and was hit with a much larger sum than I thought and the cheery smile of the accountant who explained "you'll need to pay all of this before you go". What would have been nice, and normal, was to let us know ahead of time around how much it would be and let us know it was policy to pay it before you leave the hospital. We have a great insurance plan, but the way it works is that we pay everything up front, file, and are reimbursed at a later date. I slowly made my way up the stairs to Scotty's room where he was happily waiting in matching army pants, a little too short (in my survivor kit, I had not put any pants, so our smaller friend Randy had to bring some so he wouldn't have to leave the hospital in his underwear) with Randy, wondering how we were going to pull together $7000 all at once.He and about 3 other people we spoke to on the phone all had the same reaction: drop mouth open saying loudly and slowly, "Seven thousand dollars!!??" We kindly explained to oblivious accountant lady that there was a slight impossibility that we could come up with that kind of money before we left the hospital (unless we wanted to hang out a few more days) and she made some phone calls. The surgeon graciously lowered his fee a bit, we talked yo a wonderful co-worker about floating us the money, and we had the bill paid within a couple hours. I guess we needed to learn that lesson!
So, we saw the surgeon last night and he felt that everything looked nice, if you can say a 7 inch incision with blue, ugly stitches looks nice, and that the sling can come off in another 6 weeks or so. The plate and screws can be left in forever, as long as they don't bother Scotty, and we're praying that it will work out to leave them in. I'm learning how to dress a very tall man, as well as giving shampoos and turning into a chauffeur. Scotty is catching up on a lot of email correspondence, one-handed of course, and we've spent more evenings together this week than in a long time. Last night we picked a chapter out of Systematic Theology and took turns reading and then praying about what we read. God has a lot of good things in store for this period of our lives, I know it, and a lot of challenges to our holiness as we learn patience, trust, dependence (in Him and each other) and are reminded again of what a good gift we have in marriage.