Moving In

The MRI scheduled for early in the morning was pushed to after lunch. It would have been perfect timing for me to get coffee after the MRI if Amanda had gone to the early morning one. She was NPO, no food, so we had to wait. We haven’t been hitting StarBs too hard. Amanda hasn’t even asked for it too much; she knows with the long haul, we can’t do it every day. Plus, it’s a pretty good hike to get to the real one, uphill on the way back too! Tomorrow will be coffee day, I guess. No Bumex was given in the morning, and I didn’t have a good feeling about them holding it. The PET scan is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

The nurse was the same from yesterday, she noticed my dresser and liked it. I was finally busted, she said she’d never seen anyone do that before. As I was getting ready by the window, the nurse asked if there were food trucks outside in the courtyard. Wednesdays are food truck day. There was a small trailer that I could see, which said donuts and lemonade. Hot donuts nonetheless. We joke that Amanda’s emotional food is french fries, mine would be donuts. There was no way I was passing on hot donuts from a food trailer! Thursdays are farmers market days, too. The nurse said they set up booths in the courtyard. I plan on getting Amanda a hall pass to take her. Later in the day, a Taco truck set up, as well as an Asian fusion truck. I googled them and neither had decent plant based options. Sadly, my donut truck was gone, though. I figured that selling lemonade, they would have stayed till in the afternoon.

The team came by, and as the cardiologist started to examine Amanda, he said, ‘What’s that?’ referring to my dresser, busted again! Someone said a dresser, and I explained I put it together from a box, and he said Actually, that’s really smart. As he examined Amanda, he said she was dry, if not too dry. Amanda thinks she still has some fluid on, and was about four pounds from base weight. He said one indicator was that her creatine was up. It was up because they put her on a double dose of the metolazon, which her creatine is sensitive to. I had already told them that, they can just figure things out themselves. They held all diuretics for today and will ease her back into them tomorrow. I just held my tongue; there hasn’t been a day she hasn’t been on them since the rejection. It wasn’t time to go head-to-head with this doctor. I feel that if I do it, it will be like two rams crashing their heads into each other. I kind of felt his compliment about coming on rounds, may have been two-sided, with him being a slight jerk. I’ll just let him figure things out when Amanda’s weight goes up tomorrow. I really hate this figuring things out for themselves. We need her listed they can figure this crap out while we are waiting on the list! He did say we’d learn a lot from the MRI. Maybe after they “learned” all they need to, we can get listed by the weekend.

They came and got Amanda right on time for the MRI, right in the middle of unpacking her bags into the dresser. She had procrastinated till the last minute when I bugged her to get things unpacked so I could offload all the bags to the “storage unit”, our Yukon. I took the bags and a few other things to the Yukon while she went back for the MRI. There is construction all over on this side of the hospital, with one of the main garages shut down. So, when I got to the garage where we are parked, it was busy with traffic attendants directing traffic. I rearranged some bags to take a few things in, including a vase and flowers, which were brought up with us. They are pretty fake tulips we got from Costco for our dining table in the apartment. Amanda didn’t want to bring them, thinking they were too big, but I packed them anyway. I replaced the Yukon headlights in the garage before I headed back. I needed the old ones to send back for a return.

Once back, I set up the flowers on our dresser, a perfect fit and a nice pop of color. I hide the Xbox in the dresser, too. I brought a screwdriver in that set the security detector off! I needed it to finish tightening the drawer handles on the dresser; there’s only so much you can do with a ghetto Allen wrench screwdriver combo that came with the dresser for assembly! Amanda got back from the MRI not long after. She was a little slow to move around and dizzy. They gave her meds to speed up her heart, and it made her feel pretty bad. She said she was nauseous in the machine. Afterwards, she was really dizzy getting out, and they gave her a medication that was pretty much caffeine to reverse the effects of the other. I’m sure she would have much rather had a brown sugar oatmilk shaken espresso than a caffeine med! She was hurting when she came back and called for pain meds. Her nurse was at lunch, and another nurse showed up to get her meds. She said, ‘I like what you’ve done, pointing at the dresser and flowers; it feels like home.’

Amanda was still feeling bad and wanted lunch. I ran to the cafeteria to get a little something. Amanda wanted someone light. They only had one veggie sushi roll, so I grabbed it and some hummus from the sandwich shop to get with some crackers we had in our stash. The sticker they put on the hummus said ‘cheese’ $ 0.59. The cashier questioned whether I had only gotten cheese; at least I got something cheap from there! When I was walking back to the room, the nurse called Mr. Simmons as she was coming out of a room behind me. She said you did a good job on the room; she loves it. Everybody likes the setup we have! I still have more stuff to bring in, I’m just staging things. I have a travel refrigerator showing up for our friends tomorrow. We’re gonna make the most out of this extended stay.

Though I don’t want to leave, I have a flight scheduled a week from now. I go back home on the 11th. I chose to fly into Austin rather than San Antonio because of the better selection of direct flights, and the cost was also lower into AUS. YJ, our pastor, had the foresight to hustle people weeks ago for airline points for me to fly back and forth. It was a great idea and a blessing; we have a few people lined up to fly me back and forth. I’ll stay at home but work out of San Antonio, heading to Houston, to be close to an airport in case I need to get back to Nashville quickly. I plan to return around the end of the month, a little over 2 weeks home before I head back.

The food tray that came tonight was the best plant based hospital food we’ve ever had. It was a stir-fry with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and onions, with a battered and fried tofu that was better than many restaurants. To the cafeteria, quoting Dumb and Dumber, “And totally redeem yourself!” I wish I’d gotten a guest tray. It’s odd that wasn’t on the menu or offered anywhere. I hope that’s something Amanda can order when I’m gone, heck, while I’m here. We shared it, but it wasn’t enough for both of us. So, later in the evening, I went to grab Taco Bell from the children’s hospital. I hadn’t been that way yet. On the map, it didn’t look connected, so I went outside and took the sidewalk a couple of blocks south to get there. I saw a skybridge when I crossed a street. So, I asked the receptionist how to get back to using it and followed their directions. I had to walk a long way outside since most doors are exit-only, with security and scanners at all entrances. It’s an odd layout, too, because the hospital is on a hill. The east side of the hospital is street level on the second floor, the middle, which is the main entrance, is street level on the first floor, and the west side is ground level on the second floor, which is connected to the skybridge at the children’s hospital with a first-floor ground level!

I was asking the night nurse about traffic, thinking of the drive if we were to get an apartment not close by. He said it could get bad, but tomorrow through this weekend was the CMA Music Fest, so it was already crazy. Later in the evening, Amanda had some crazy palpitations. The monitor was going crazy, and she called the nurse to let them know. She had a run of V-tach, which is when the lower chamber beats too fast and doesn’t pump well. It only lasted a little while and wasn’t too bad. She had a few PVCs later, which is where the lower chamber has extra beats and gives her a fluttery feeling. This is a regular occurrence for her. Tomorrow is the PET scan, and we have some friends passing through that will stop by to see us in the evening. I hope we have the MRI results so we can see where we go from here. I’m getting tired of not being listed yet.