Post-surgery dining etc.

I've got an idea for a cookbook.

No, it wouldn't be my recipes. I'm not a great cook.

I'd call my cookbook something like this: "Cooking With Compassion."

Or, "Recipes for Recuperation."

I got this idea after my wife had both knees replaced last month. When she came home, I was fully prepared to take on kitchen duties. Even though I'm not a gourmet chef, I don't think we would starve under my culinary care. We've got a great grill that we use year-around. And I've learned dozens of food-preparation tricks from my wife, who is an excellent cook.

Lo and behold, friends had taken our menus into their own hands. Rather than overwhelm us with more food than we possibly could consume, someone had taken the initiative to organize the daily food deliveries.

I must say we ate well.

And nutritiously.

It was a treat for my wife and me, not just because it was something we didn't have to worry about, but because we ate so many delicious dishes prepared in ways that were new or different to us.

I don't know about your cooking regimen, but I think most of us tend to get into a rut of familiar dinners that don't require opening a recipe book.

So we tasted different spices and interesting combinations that we would never have mixed on our own.

And the desserts. Cape Girardeau and its environs must have more pie bakers per capita than anyplace else in the world. And how lucky we were that our time of need came just as strawberries, peaches and blueberries were ready to be picked.

One blueberry pie arrived while our older son was home to help with the auction of his grandmother's household items in my favorite hometown in the Ozarks over yonder. He is both a gourmet cook and a gourmet diner. After tasting the pie with its lattice-crust top, he declared that it was the best blueberry pie he had ever tasted. And he knows his blueberries.

Many of you have been on the receiving end of similar generosity, so you know I mean what I'm about to say to all those who trooped to our back door with daily deliveries of dinner goodies: Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

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After several days of being with my wife in a hospital room, I can report to you that today's surgical procedures and post-surgery care are unbelievably good.

I can also report that I am not cut out to be a nurse, although I enthusiastically pitched in whenever and however I could.

Something else that I noticed is that nurses, the registered ones who go through extensive training and practice, do more paperwork than anything else. It appears our health-care system has become a giant system of documentation surrounded by legal land mines.

Actual patient care is delivered mostly by a legion of aides, techs, orderlies, social workers, therapists and activity directors. All of this is monitored by patient-care representatives whose task, as best I can tell, is to document that everyone else's documentation is up to snuff.

This is not a criticism. My wife couldn't have had better care. And her road to recovery was hastened immeasurably by the efforts of so many well-trained individuals. But it's an observation of health care in America today. So much of what goes on in hospitals is the direct result of requirements imposed by government, lawyers and insurance companies.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.