My husband was discharged from hospital on a Thursday, a week following his open heart surgery, on September 22. Recovery is agonizingly slow. There appears to be, as we were forewarned, no steady progression. He may experience a good day, to be followed by two 'bad' days. The tug of war between the severity of his surgery and the body's efforts to recover its former strength, stamina and state of overall health -- the condition necessitating his surgery aside, is a complex and lengthy one.

But now that we're approaching the month-mark of his surgery, we can assess his steady rate of recovery, despite what seem all too often like set-backs, however temporary. When you're feeling as low as he often does it's hard to feel motivated to do much of anything, much less the regular physiotherapy protocol that is meant to exercise muscles to prepare them for undertaking the usual tasks required of them in an active lifestyle.

I'm grateful that he is finally eating properly. Strangely enough, coffee no longer has any appeal for him and only time will tell whether this is permanent. Oddly enough, 57 years ago when I was pregnant with our first child, I had lost, permanently, my taste for coffee. Now, with each day that passes, we have expectations that improvement will be accelerated; just as his taste and appetite have improved so too has his outlook.

The day of rain we were expecting from the forecast has not yet materialized, after last night's series of violent thunderstorms, and the sun made its way briefly through the clouds by noon, making it a perfect time to venture out for a short and carefully cadenced walk up and down the street, and up to the group mailbox. Allowing him to have some fresh air and badly-needed exercise to hasten his recovery.

And although it will be some time before he has recovered enough of his strength and endurance to enable him to go out with me and the puppies once more into the ravine, to resume our normal lifestyle, that time is on the near horizon, too. In the meantime, through this brief walk he was visually treated to the sight of nearby trees turning colour, and even the sight of our own garden closing down for the winter months.