Attitude Turnaround

I am on day 6 in the hospital and I feel a 180 degree turnaround in attitude. This was a great respite and space from everyone. I’ve had few visitors, pretty much done just what I wanted to do. Even cry myself to sleep Saturday night.

I’ve seen my favorite nurses and aids. They have either been assigned to me, or found a way to come and work with me. Robin has been my nurse two days. Leslee was my night nurse last night. I didn’t remember her because she took care of me when I came out of ICU and couldn’t hear and only barely see. She said she worked with my sister to try to figure out what I was saying. Leslee said “you were always very nice, but what a different person you are now!” (Nice to report to my mother that her years of teaching good manners paid off--I apparently have them so ingrained that even when I'm out of it I use them.)

Little Megan is a sweet aid and she found me crying Saturday night and stayed late to soothe me to sleep. Very nice. Lauren who was my night nurse for so long when I first came in was on duty last night and she got Leslee to let her start my blood last night. That requires the nurse be in the room for 15 minutes with the patient so I had a good visit with her. Joe has been the aid on days several days and he’s good fun.

New nurses that I like are Keely on days and Celeste on nights. Morgan on nights was nice but all business. Dave the strange aid is still on nights…we all have a laugh about him. I’m sure he drives the staff crazy but I just amuse myself wondering what he’s thinking.

Walt has been here almost every morning with Starbucks and a newspaper. The hospital has a new menu for neutropenic diets. This means I can order anything on the menu which is surprisingly broad. Before I would select an item from the general menu and get a “you can’t have that” response. I would ask them to hold the lettuce or something and finally come up with something I could eat. This is much easier.

I’ve had only a couple of guests and that’s been terrific. I might be using up too many resources with guests that I need to be spending on myself. Keeping my head in the right place. Dr. McGuirk’s confidence coupled with the space and rest have been the perfect environment for getting prepared for the next phase.

And I should probably not underestimate the news that Walt will be moving back to Kansas City. Having him here working already is a calming influence on everyone.

I am heading home later this afternoon. I will have daily clinic visits for about two weeks. I'm taking an IV antibiotic to keep fevers at bay, to prevent any possibility of infection at the gall bladder site (which is much less painful) and whatever else it can attack. The plan now is to restart the transplant process in 4 weeks, but as always, it is a moving target.

I'll be at Mom & Dad's house again. Upstairs with my Wii Fit. Getting exercise and consuming 3000 calories! That's a lotta chocolate and cookies! I guess all the extra calories are to maintain my weight because I've noticed it falls no matter what I eat after chemo. Nice to have that feature after Halloween this year.

Conor has added my current address to the front of the blog to try to keep changing info available.