An Inherent Distrust

Welcome to my 42nd day in the hospital. My 42nd day of a 5-6 day stay. Things seem to be going along okay, aside from a little steroid psychosis today which coupled with Hayward's last day brought forth gallons of tears, no matter what I was doing.

This morning McGuirk came in and began a dialogue with me "now we have a problem coming up here." (This discussion followed the usual back and forth about diarrhea, vomiting, eating, drinking and pain levels.) McGuirk made several appropriate changes, notably to the pain killer. Last night I took some Dilaudid about midnight and threw up within 2 minutes of getting it in my IV. So we're changing the pain killer. Back to the Fentenyl patch I think; I haven't been lucky enough to get there.

But back to the dialogue and the problem coming up here. The problem is that McGuirk is going back to the outpatient clinic to do rounds for a couple of weeks. And the next thing he said was "I have an inherent distrust of you and Dr. Aljitawi together." LOL I laughed and said it was because I love him, but I love McGuirk too. McGuirk made me promise to not leave the hospital til at least Monday. He needs to get some more results from the Endoscopy, which we hope shows a little bit of graft vs. host and will account for this annoying pain in my right side.

So I will get to see Dr. Aljitawi next week, well beginning tomorrow. And I am sure I could talk him into sending me home, but I won't.

Meanwhile Hayward went to the big doghouse in the sky this evening. Mark was in OKC and went with Shane to put him down. He said when the vet brought in the sedative, Hayward lifted up his head and wagged his tail. The vet said that was a sign of a well loved dog. Shane said they were going to go buy a bag of soy nuts and eat the whole bag. I introduced Charlene to soy nuts when she was in Kansas city one time, but Hayward ate the entire 1# package out of her suitcase. I reminded Shane and Mark that he also ate an unnamed friend's knickers right out of her suitcase too. ewww uyuck!

The nurses here have been more than kind, giving me lots of hugs and love and asking for stories about Hayward. My niece and nephew, Caroline and Anthony created some fine pictures last summer with the dogs in them and they are hanging in my room here at the hospital. My apartment really.

I have some new steroid drugs to take that are designed to protect the digestive tract without filling my body with mood swings. However, one tastes like Castor oil. I swear. It is really gross. Walt brought me some Coca-Cola to chase it with but there is still an aftertaste.

A couple of early Hayward pics. One where Mark seems to have him in his arms, and one of my children at the time we got Hayward adding a little perspective.