Happy Festivus!

Monday John called me from the hospital. He had to beg someone to use their cell phone. He was losing it. He has been in the hospital for 2 weeks and it was really starting to get to him. They moved him into the Community Living Center, but unfortunately he is surrounded by very old people dying. His breaking point was when some woman who was visiting someone else told him that this is the ward where they stick people to die. He was so upset when he finally reached me by phone. Crying. I was able to talk him down from the ledge. He's not in pain; not taking any pain medicine; the doctors ruled out cancer;he is starting to eat;and most importantly, the antibiotics are working! I told him I would see him Tuesday after work. I was able to get out a few minutes early, but all hell had broke loose by then. We had wind storms that were slowly closing all the main routes to the I-10. Since I needed to fill up my tank, I drove down to Ramon Rd heading towards Date Palm. Traffic was bad until I made it over the bridge for the wash. Didn't have any problems after that. The freeway was not congested at all. I stopped at Stater Bros to get flowers, a vase, and a get-well card. When I finally got to see John, he was so happy to see me. He told me that they would let him leave the hospital to get some Chinese food. That's what we did. He has been walking a lot in the hallway to try to build up his strength. He did good on our outing. He is looking to get released Saturday. It will be so good for him to get back home.

X-MAS

One of the most annoying Christmas decorations ever.


In other news, John is doing much better now. He answered the phone when I called today, and I can tell just from the sound of his voice he is much better. He only takes pain medications when needed now. I think he's on the way to a full recovery. They haven't gotten the results back from the biopsy yet, but I think it's going to be negative for the big C. Knock on wood.

John is still in the hospital, it's been a week now. The nurse says he's doing better, but they have him so drugged up it's hard to tell what's up with him. He sleeps so much that he doesn't answer the phone when I call him. He can't dial out, because you need to PIN code, which I guess you have to buy some kind of phone card. He might need to stay for another week in the hospital. He had a biopsy done of his pancreas, but the results won't be in for a few days.

Hospital

Tuesday, I brought John to the VA hospital emergency room because he had been having severe stomach pain that wouldn't go away. At first we thought it was a bug, but when it persisted after several days, it was time to take him in. Took him there after work, arrived about 6 PM. They took him in right away, and I was allowed to go back in the little triage room with him. They took him for x-rays, and tried to draw blood. He had become so dehydrated since he hasn't been able to eat & drink for some time now. The blood was almost too thick to be drawn properly. They put two bags of saline into him the time that I was there, and a third was to be started. We went upstairs twice for CAT scans. They finally decided that he was having a problem with his pancreas. Not sure if it was cancer or pancreatitis. I hope it's the latter, because the big C is what Patrick Swayze died of. One of the worst cancers you can get, very high mortality rate. That is because they can't detect it in advance and once you experience pain from it, it has already spread to other organs making it impossible to stop. Nasty stuff. He was finally admitted into the hospital at 2:47 AM, I got to leave at 3 AM. I drove home, it took about an hour. Got up at 7 AM to get ready for work. It took them most of the day to get him into the main hospital. He is still there, and now they want to do a biopsy to try to rule out pancreatic cancer. The doctors really don't think that's what he has. On the "brigher side," it is not unusual for bypass surgery patients to experience pancreatitis afterwards. It happens. At least it can be cured in 80% of cases.