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At Least I'm Enjoyin' the Ride

Blogging tunes: SD@PHI on second monitor via local Slingbox

Absolutely insane week -- probably the craziest week since I've been home.  No, nothing happened with me -- things continue to progress quite nicely. In fact, my Nurse Practitioner reduced my Tacrolimus again yesterday. So now I'm down to 0.5 twice a day. That's half of what it was 4 weeks ago, so we're on the right track.

So what happened this week? Heather got an absolutely epic migraine on Tuesday -- worst one since well before Floyd was born. She was basically horizontal and out of it from Tuesday morning through Wednesday evening when I decided to take her to the ER. Breaking the pain/nausea cycle and getting another full day+ of rest allowed her to get back to normal by Friday night.

The thing is, we really didn't plan for anything like this, so it was a huge challenge for me to take care of the kids and take care of her. Admittedly, I didn't do the best job: I was tired, stressed out, and downright grumpy much of the time, but we got through it with the help of our neighbors who put the kids to bed on Wednesday and stayed at the house while we were at Marin General.

At least there was some humor to the ER visit. When we finally got seen (it was a zoo there, so it took a while to get a bed), there was this total wastoid, stoner dude in the bed next to us. We couldn't see him, because of the curtain, but we could hear him, and man, I wish I voice-recorded the whole hour we were there with him. It didn't occur to me to do so until later, and I did manage to get a few soundbytes -- which I stitched together and slightly level corrected for your listening pleasure, here -- but the real gem of the story is why he was there, and how his injury happened.

Even when we left, I couldn't get a picture (privacy issues) but listen to the clip so you can get a feel for his speaking voice/manner, then imagine him telling this story. Oh, and this guy is apparently on more pain killers than Rush Limbaugh used to be.  I think he said 40mg of oxycodone.  That's 4x what I took for serious pain (and 8x what I took for mild pain) during my chemo!

Essentially, he was in for this nasty burn on his leg which wasn't healing properly or something. When the doctor asked how he got it, he explained that he keeps a lava lamp near his bed and that he rolls around a lot when he sleeps and that he fried his leg on the lava lamp. The doctor suggested that his leg must have been in contact with the lamp for quite some time to get a burn like that and asked why he didn't just wake up or pull his leg away. He claimed that, for some reason he couldn't explain, he had been up for 2+ days previously and crashed hard so he probably didn't feel it. Seriously, dude? The doctor went on to ask about how that was possible, was he on any drugs, etc. That's when he got into his whole oxycodone (and whatever else) diatribe.

Look, especially after what I've been through, I'm not one to make fun of someone else's misfortune (except maybe the Mets') but you had to hear this guy. You could script a better movie character. When his buddy brought him dinner, our hero exuberantly told him about how he just discovered that he could access the internet on this phone. Again, seriously? I mean, really? Ya just figured that out, guy? He talked about so many other things -- I wish I could remember more. I was barely able to hold it together I was laughing so much.

Another highlight of the week was my weekly gig at Little Arrows pre-school. Since I had the clinic appointment on Friday, I did Tuesday this week. Here's the setlist:

Hello Song
Dirt Made My Lunch >
Alaska
Sugaree >
Ocelot
Black Peter >
My Friend, My Friend
Runaway Jim >
Loving Cup
Goodbye Song

I realize I don't talk about my clinic visits much, but they're pretty intense. They draw a boatload of blood and do all kinds of tests in near real-time. Here's a pic of what they use and the tubes they fill:

Saline, heparin, and blood tubes 

And here's the nurse hooking up to my Hickman line -- at least they don't have to prick me while I still have my line:

Blood draw
After my clinic visit, I had a couple hours to kill before my second appointment of the day -- the pre-consult for the lithotripsy next Friday. Since I needed to get a walk in, I headed down to Kezar to grab some lunch and catch up with Cyril. He treated me to a plate of wings and a beer. I learned later in the evening that my system is not quite ready for a full plate of wings -- will spare the details, but I thoroughly enjoyed them and my second beer since transplant.

Best wings in the city - Kezar Pub on Stanyan

On a fun note, the weather has been fantastic in San Rafael and Floyd is loving his little hopscotch water toy.

Floyd - splat!

Floyd drink

That's it for now. Gonna head out with the family. Getting stronger every day.

Its ass is getting a whoopin',

-jg

Comments

  1. Hey John,

    Thanks for blogging! Glad you got through the craziness! Glad Heather is better! Glad Friday's clinic visit went so well!

    We love you very much!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey dude, sorry you and H had such a rough week, but it's good to know that you can keep your sense of humor even in the tough moments.

    Love you guys...

    ejsphilly

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry H had to deal with such a bad headache.. That sucks. :( Hope she doesn't get another one like that any time soon!!

    ReplyDelete

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