HE IS CURRENTLY
IN ROOM 318 A
Good news: He's stable. I spoke to two
doctors this morning, and they both feel he is looking much better. Well, yeah. He's off heavy doses of
narcotics. That will make anyone look
better.
He has remained
on the nasal cannula and hasn't been on the bi-pack, a mask ventilator.
He spoke this
morning about getting a committee to address his needs. He wasn't clear about
what those needs were. Knowing him, he
wants to make sure it all doesn't fall on me.
I told him about all the things we had already taken care of and
something about how I was taking care of myself. He's been sleeping !!!!!! He will get another CT scan tomorrow. Nothing suspicious. They just want to check
his progress and make sure no surprises are lurking in there.
Bad news: Nothing!! Unless you count
the continued prediction that he will be in the hospital for quite a
while.
APB:
I will need to move out of the Airbnb I am staying in on the 9th. If anyone has an inside track to one, please
let me know. I have some folks, Shivani
and Judy, already searching the net looking for one. Don't feel you have to
duplicate their work.
My original thought was that I
would go home for some time once he could speak on the phone regularly. I think he is there already. He actually answered the phone this morning.
OK, let's look a plan B. I won't go home
until he can go to the bathroom on his own, well, with some help from an aide.
Let's see if I stick to that.
I had Yvette check the voice mail
on our house phone. Most of the messages were from Kaiser Permanente, calling to make travel
plans for appointments that should have been canceled already. But there was one: a new donor stepped up to
the plate. Don't know the lady; never heard her name.
After getting up at 10 pm last
night, eating something, and writing an entry, I went back to bed and slept
soundly till the birds woke me up around 7 am. I took a shower, got dressed,
soaked a nightgown in my scent (essential oils: lavender, grapefruit, absolute
rose, and citronella), and went up to the main house where my hostess
lives. No response.
The house is on a narrow street
with people parked on one side. We have
to park on the lawn at night and get our cars off the road. Getting out in the
morning is a piece of work. I have had
all my accidents while driving under 5 mph.
This doesn't bode well for me.
The Bnb is in the University area of
Honolulu. There were two kids in the 20s
coming down the street. I immediately
enlisted then to help me get out. The
young man took charge. He told me to
pull forward first and straighten out my car, so I had more room between me and
the car to my right, also parked on the lawn. He carefully guided me out. Made
it without a scratch. Phew!
I
am experiencing a lot of serendipity.. This comes with a life in
transition. Lots of surprises, both good
and bad. Eventually, we will be out of
this transitional phase, and life will take on a routine. I will have nothing
more to say then. No luscious details
about new encounters and hopefully nothing to say about Mike other than
"He's a little better today." I know it's going to be a long haul
before he is anything close to what he was on the afternoon of the 24thof
January. I keep telling him it's a long haul, but I haven't given him the
possible number of months or years ahead of us. I look forward to a boring life.
I finally checked my Airbnb emails
last night. My hostess is requesting
that I leave on the 9thrather than the 10th.
While this place is shabby (the paper veneer on the kitchen cabinets is
peeling, and some of the glass slats in the louver windows are missing), it is
absolutely wonderful, too. The sleeping
area is surrounded by those louver windows. It's a little like sleeping on my
lanai at home. I can feel the
breeze. Am I happy we moved to Hawaii!!!
Being in nature is actually more important to me than any other attribute of
place. We can't even close the house off
from the outside. Our bedroom can be,
but we keep the sliding door open at all times. I sleep, looking out at
nature. I can't begin to tell you how
much this means to me. I usually don't
do well in enclosed air-conditioned environments. I would never be here a the hospital if I
didn't feel Mike needs me to get better.
But I'm spending a little less time indoors as he sleeps more, and I
feel a little less like I have to oversee the medical staff. I have 45 years invested in that man. I want 20 more. I am protecting my investment.
I pulled into the parking lot, as
usual, this morning. I watched people back into these narrow spots with those
large cement pillars right by their side. I don't even dare pull in front
wise. I look for a spot I can pull
straight into without having to turn the wheel left or right.
This morning, I finally felt
comfortable enough to stop by to check the location of the Hot Yoga studio
nearby the Airbnb. I knew it would be closed at this time. I just wanted to get
the location down, so I wasn't running around like a crazy lady frantically
trying to find the place when I did go.
I sat outside in front of the
hospital, had my breakfast, a tuna melt and a mango slushy, and wrote this
entry. About to go back inside.
Hopefully, Mike has been asleep all this time. He is so much more relaxed. However, Damon asked a doctor if someone
actually told him he won't die if he falls asleep. I don't know. I requested it, but then forgot about it when
he did fall asleep on his own.
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