I was up early this morning, too early. Plus with the time change, I’m not sure I got four hours of sleep. Tank and I went for a stroll this morning down the side road next to our apartment. There aren’t any sidewalks but a large swath of grass, and I don’t think we even saw one car go by anyway. I got him settled and headed to the hospital, watching the Ring as I walked. He was whining, howling, and barking, and I forgot to turn the TV on for back noise. As I waited for coffee, I hollered at him to stop through the Ring speaker. He came over and gave me the eye right in the camera!
As I hopped on the bus, I didn’t have my daily pass ready and activated. Not too many drivers have cared to see it, but this one did. After I sat down, I got called to the front of the bus like a kid in trouble. I showed him my then active pass and got off with a warning! When I texted to see if Amanda wanted coffee, it mattered which stop I got off at, the nurse was in, and she didn’t get back to me. So, I guessed and was wrong and it cost me a couple blocks of walking to pick the StarBs order.
Amanda’s rate has been up a bit, in the low 140s. She was just sitting there with her head shaking. I joked with her and said I thought you were agreeing with me, but it was just your head shaking from your rate going so fast. I may use that to my advantage when I need a yes out of her for something! I feel like a celebrity sometimes walking around, at StarBs I got a very loud “Welcome in, Mr Barkley” from one of the cashiers organizing outgoing orders. Then, the Westin van driver rolled his window down and honked to holler at me when I was walking to grab lunch. Before long, I’m going to get to know everybody around here!
Amanda’s morning lab draw showed a very high sodium level, which perplexed us. The nurse came to draw the labs again, followed by the hospitalist, who asked if they initially drew the blood from the central line. Then, it made sense that they may not have drawn back enough after flushing it with saline. Amanda mentioned that the second draw was also out of the central line. I chimed in, and said I saw that she drew back well enough. I watched intently as Amanda looked away when they got the blood again. It turns out the level was a false high, as the doctor suspected.
I finally got to meet the cardiologist, on his last day of rounding. He was pleasant and I liked him. As I stood to greet him, and as he came over, Amanda said it was funny. He just stared at me and kept tilting his head back farther as I rose out of my chair! He didn’t even seem to be that short but I guess I still towered over him. He mentioned that we are still waiting for a bed to become available at Methodist. He spoke directly to me a good bit, catching me up on things. He spoke well of St. Luke’s, saying they were good, but Methodist was better equipped to handle desensitization of the antibodies prior to transplant. I asked if he would follow us over there and he said oh yeah, saying that even though he wasn’t on transplant rounds this week, he would stop in and check on us until we were transferred. He seemed to think the transfer would take place early this week.
I had a Walmart delivery coming. I know we’re in the big city and have better options, but I’m brand loyal to a few things, and no one else has them. The closest one was the same one where the underwear debacle happened, so I couldn’t bring myself to go back there yet! The delivery was slotted between 3-5, my usual time to go home. I forgot and ended up having to scramble to beat the driver. I got a notification that he was leaving the store right at three. I beat him with enough time to take Tank, who had a very full bladder, outside.
After I put groceries up, I put a wash on for some sheets, I finally have all the parts to get our bed outfitted. Tank and I went for a longer walk around the block too. It turns out there is a St Luke’s stand-alone ER on the street opposite us where an eye center is. It was a decent walk with lots of grass for the pooping and sniffing. As I got to the complex gate, my watch dinged to record a workout; it showed right at a half mile.
I worked on setting up the shower head/handle, but I forgot it lowers the nozzle with the added handle slide. The lower position would be great for washing my beard but I’d have to duck to wash anything above my nose! So, I ordered an extension that I’ll put on tomorrow. It reminded me of my first solo travel trip. At 18 years old, I went with a group of men to build a roof for a church in Honduras. After a week there, I sat out to backpack solo through Central America for a few weeks. While in the interior of Belize, I stayed in a roach-infested shack of a motel with a communal shower, don’t judge, I was on a budget! When I walked into the bathroom, it was the eve of the roof. I had to duck to get in and could not stand at all in the bathroom. The roof kept getting lower the farther I went. By the time I reached the shower, the shower head was below arm pit level! I have fond memories of that trip; that is a particular experience I will never forget. That trip changed my life in many ways, far more than just learning to shower while knelt down!
I picked dinner up and just drove to the hospital. Amanda had been saying that Dr. Nair better come by before we get transferred. His ears must have been burning, low and behold, he stopped by right after we finished dinner. It was an informal goodbye of sorts and hit Amanda hard in the feels. I’d question if care would be transferred once we were at Methodist, and he confirmed. He also mentioned they’d likely plan to keep Amanda admitted till transplant. That was a shocker, I wasn’t expecting that. We were so close to getting out of the hospital on the weekend. I’m not going to worry about that until we know what the new team’s plan is. I thought that’s what hit Amanda so hard, but she said it was leaving Dr. Nair. He’s been our longest-running doctor throughout this health journey and even makes me sad.
He did say he would come see us at Methodist, I sure hope he does. I still need to have a follow-up with him about my bicuspid valve problem. I still think it’s crazy that I’m the one with the congenital heart defect and not Amanda! It has been a few years since I discovered that and had an initial consult with another doctor. We’ve never been able to make the plan work out since the days he has clinic and transplant follow-ups are at the opposite ends of the week. We had plans for February to see him just for my visit. There was a Star Wars movie in concert the night after and an anniversary party we’d planned to catch the next day. We were going to make it a date weekend out of it, instead we had a date hospital weekend! Either way, once Amanda has her transplant, I plan to make an appointment to see him while we still live here. So we’ll continue to see him one way or another.