This week was a bit of a challenge. I am still healing from my appendectomy and the ensuing complications, but the nice weather is calling me. I want to go out and about and go geocaching, but I’m scared of doing more damage to my still-healing abdomen. For those who missed it, see When Things Go Wrong.

This week, the visiting nurses came to change the bandages around the wound vacuum and saw that my skin around the wound was developing a rash. On Friday, they decided that I needed a break from the adhesive film they use over the area surrounding the wound. I just have some sterile gauze in the wound now, and a covering taped over the area of the wound and the rash, with miconazole powder on the rash. My husband had to change the bandage yesterday, and the rash looked a lot better after one day without the adhesive film on and the powder. We’ll see what the nurses say when they come on Monday.

I’d been advised to go out, so I went geocaching a couple of times before the wound vacuum had to be removed. I felt confident with the adhesive covering the wound and sort of holding it together that I could do it safely as long as I didn’t do anything challenging and stuck to mostly roadside geocaches. On Tuesday, I went to find a geocache in the small and insular town of Nahant, Massachusetts which is very near Salem, Massachusetts.

I’ve tried twice before to see Salem, but got thwarted by falling down steps the first time and then time and weather the second. Tuesday was a beautiful day and I found a bunch of geocaches there as well as walked around the city. There are shops catering to Wiccan things and I was surprised by just how much there is in this subject. I found a shop with cards and bought my daughter a birthday card (her birthday was Thursday, so it’s late) and some cute small gift to send her. The rest of the time was just walking around seeing the history that the geocaches brought me to.

I found a bakery, Lulu’s, that made sandwiches as well and had my lunch there and brought home some treats for the family. I’d like to go back to Salem sometime and go in all the museums. I have a friend who would love to go there with me. I think it’s definitely a place worth visiting.

My last stop before going home was the House of the Seven Gables, made famous by the book my Nathaniel Hawthorne, who is in the statue above. Hawthorne visited the house, which belonged to his cousin, quite frequently when he worked at the Custom House in Salem from 1845 through 1849. The book was written in 1851.

I managed to cross off 8 towns in Massachusetts that I needed to find a geocache in each of the 351 towns in Massachusetts as well as the 1,497 towns in New England. I’m up to 668 of 1,497 so I still have quite a ways to go. I had planned to go geocaching around Acadia National Park this weekend since it’s the off-season and not as crowded or expensive. However, not having a sturdy bandage over the wound made me nervous that I could do more damage, so I canceled that. We will see what the nurses say on Monday.

I spent the last few days excited to watch my baseball team, the New York Mets, start their season. Right now they have won the first three games against the Washington Nationals, with the fourth game of the series starting in about an hour. I’ve been a Mets fan since I was 8, so this is something that keeps me distracted and gives me something to watch other than the same shows over and over. When I was in the hospital it was worse because I didn’t have my on-demand shows. I’m not one to sit home and just watch television, though, so it’s wearing on me.

Recent books I read: