Day Zero Plus Thirteen and Wedding Minus 30

I walked to the hospital early today due to the extreme heat.  Nevertheless, I was soaked when I got there.  Jeff said that his best effort yesterday – no naps, holding out for meds until bedtime – did not yield a good night’s sleep last night.  He’d been given a sleeping pill around 9:30 p.m. and it didn’t work.  Then his shoulders and arms began to hurt so he asked for Oxycodone.  Then he was told that he couldn’t have any more sleep aid until 2 a.m. and he became worried that he would never sleep, so he got some Ativan.  The plan for tonight is to use Benadryl because he slept all day when he had an allergic reaction to his platelets and was given Benadryl.

Jeff ate more than 1000 calories today, including a cheesesteak sandwich for lunch.  He even enjoyed it a little bit although it was really hard for him to get it down.  It stayed with him, too.  He seems to eat a good breakfast, a small lunch and really doesn’t ever feel like eating dinner.  He thinks he needs to try harder at dinnertime because that may be contributing to his sleep problems.  The nurse assistant, Alana, weighs him every day.  With the amount of IV fluids he gets, it is hard to tell how much weight loss/gain is real but today he was up two pounds.  Kim refers to his efforts as his “wedding diet.”

Alana is very encouraging and teases him, taps on his window to wave at him, pops her head in to say “You’re doing great!”  She is from Trinidad-Tobago and has an island accent which is only sometimes difficult to understand.  She wants “a good man” like Jeff.  Her sister had a problem with her sink and had a plumber come to her house and “he never left.”  Jeff suggested she call a plumber, too.  She says, “Oh, no!  For me they want so much money…”  Several of the nurses have asked to see more of the magazines which have featured Jeff’s work.  Maybe Kim will bring some when she comes back from the allo-cleaning party at our house this weekend.

Jeff got up to go to the bathroom and took off without grabbing his IV pole.  He laughed and said, “I forgot my dance partner.”  He says that is his version of pole dancing.  I keep mentioning the Pole Dance Studio which is one block from Kim’s apartment.  I think that would be the greatest fun (I’m all about the apparatus which is why I like rhythmic gymnastics and Stomp).  I had Jeff do his leg exercises this afternoon and the instructions warn the patient to hold on to a counter or chair, not something that moves like an IV pole or hospital tray table.  I guess that happens.  I saw a guy in the elevator this week who kept standing on his IV pole and making jokes about his scooter, much to his wife’s dismay (some patients are allowed outside).  He had to be pushing 65 or 70 and was clearly having a good time.  I wondered whether it was his first trip off his floor since he was admitted. 

Dancing!  We are 30 days from Kerry’s and Theresa’s Wedding Day and we have got to get Jeff strong enough to dance at the wedding – or at least strong enough to attend.  I tell Jeff the wedding is a month away and he seems more willing to eat and to comply with the exercise program.   We are both looking for Tuesday to come quickly.  Engraftment should happen on or around that day. 

Jeff figured out how to add sound to the Tight Wire game on his iPad.  Every time he made the fat guy fall, you’d hear, “Ahhhhhhh!” followed by a splat.  Jeff would look up at me and giggle like a goofy little kid.  Thanks, Ken.  Next, he’ll be downloading the Burp and Fart Piano mentioned by another one of his friend/customers.  I won’t name her, to protect her innocence.

Today was a little lonely.  No visitors.  Kerry visited tonight but I’d already left the hospital by the time he arrived.  Text messages from my siblings and an, as always, well-timed phone call from my friend, Jennifer, kept me from feeling too sorry for myself.