So here I am at 3am for the second day in a row, taking a moment betwen hits of Dilaudid to do something that was for many years normal for me: writing something.
I have a new normal now, and it’s getting old. I’ve lost count of the wires and tubes running from my body to mechanical and electrical instruments. I haven’t eaten in close to a week, and my intake is entirely from bags of liquid dispensed by “smart pumps” that beep loudly and often for what seems most of the time to be no reason at all. I’m creepily cool now with being 90% helpless, even as I’m close to 100% hopeful that I’ll get past this thing, which remains pancreatis, with complications, the latest of which are fluids in my abdomen, with encroachment on my right lung: the same one that took a hit from a wayward embolus a couple months back, when I first made my acquaintence with this hospital.
It’s a Harvard teaching hospital, which means that a procession of young doctors come through, each with a fresh line of inquiry, few of which, when fulfilled, contributes to an institutional memory. Most of the doctors I’ve seen here have been only once or twice. Nice folks, all, however. And all less than half my age, it seems.
My new room is a solo one. I miss the company of other patients, but I do like some of the posh features, such as a toilet that has more than five square feet of flooor space. They moved me here so they could monitor me more closely. I do appreciate that. But the reason creeps me a bit: so I won’t get pneumonia or chronic pancreatitis of the sort Suzi reports here.
Well, that’s about all I have energy for. Look for another report in a few hours, I hope.
And thanks again for all your kind wishes. I’m really looking forward to returning to normal normalcy.
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