The Other Stuff!

Day 50: Saturday, April 10, 2004
Today was a touch of a zoo! I tried to get a little done on the next BatMan I have to ship, but I was out of new labels. The labels are created with PrintMaster, from the HP CD, which I couldn't find! I did a bunch of chasing, to no avail. I did find a newer copy of PrintMaster that Sonia had bought, so I installed that. After finding the files on the old computer, I was able to hack up what I needed, and printed a sheet of labels, in time to take the kids to the Chapman's Easter egg hunt. We hung out there talking to Brian Chapman till it was time to take Brian, Richard, and Timothy Chapman off to the fun center. We picked up Alan Meitzner in downtown Redmond, and we were off. I drove to the fun center that I knew of, and Richard said that wasn't the right one. This one was on 220th in Edmonds, and Linda had said she thought it was on 196th, so we called as we were on the way up to 196th. We talked to Megan, and she looked up in the phone book, but there were no names that Richard agreed with. While we were talking, Linda arrived from the egg hunt, and She told me the name, which was the one on 220th, so back we went. We all did 3 rounds of laser tag, and Alan and I did a go-kart race. At the end of the last laser tag round, we jumped back in the car, and headed for home, where I dropped off the kids, picked up Nancy and Eric, and we went to dinner at Tokyo restaurant in Woodinville.
Linda wasn't doing as well as she has been, the GVHD is scary. I guess her treatments are three times a week. We were still not brave enough to kiss, but I rubbed her back a bunch during dinner, and she enjoyed that.
After dinner, I picked up Brian, Alan, and Timothy, and took all to their respective houses.

Day 49: Friday, April 9, 2004
I talked to Linda briefly this evening, and I guess Graft-Versus-Host-Disease (GVHD) has set in. She noticed a rash on her tummy, and had them look. Now she gets to take a bunch of pills, on an empty stomach, and climb into a tanning booth regularly. I vaguely remember Nancy saying that this happens several times a day, but I haven't gotten that from the horses mouth yet. They expect this to happen! If it didn't happen, it would be bad. That doesn't make it any more pleasant for Linda, however. She, Megan, and Scott are watching yet another Johnny Depp movie tonight. I stayed at home tonight, and took apart the kids indoor play house. I was kind of expecting to see her tonight, because she had planned on coming over to help with the egg dying project, but I guess that didn't happen.

Day 48: Thursday, April 8, 2004
Today we are doing a class about the care and feeding of Linda, when she gets to come back to us. She is hoping for doing that in a week or two. I may be healthy enough for that in a couple of weeks, we will have to see.
so the most important thing to do is to wash your hands! Life will not be the same when Linda gets home, because she won't have the energy she used to, and her immune system will not be up to par. Jaymes can't sleep on our bed anymore. This will not be easy to explain to him! The kids decided that the best thing about her coming home would be the homework help, and story time. We need to wipe down all the door knobs, Light switches, keyboards, phones, and remote controls EVERY DAY!

Day 47: Wednesday, April 7, 2004
After dinner, Eric and I took over some bills for the HLH fund to pay. When we got there, they didn't answer the phone. They didn't answer Linda's phone. They didn't answer Scott's phone. I paged Scott, and he didn't call me. Where are they? Well, I brought these bills over, and I can't pay them, so that is what the fund is for, and I'm not taking them home. I conned the smokers into letting us in, and we get to the apartment, and I knock on the door, and Linda opens it!
OK, they had just walked in the door from the store, Scott had left all his electronics in the apartment, and they hadn't gotten to Linda's phone in time. I had noticed that the elevator from the garage was on the sixth floor when we were in the lobby. We had a nice visit, but we didn't stay long, what with my cold and all. In the middle, Linda got a call from her brother Gene, and she and I talked to him, and Scott was talking to him as we left.
More about the virus: Linda gave me more on the virus today. It is one of five that are very contagious for transplant patients. As I said yesterday, it is most dangerous if they get it before engraftment, and we are quite a ways past that now. The overall stats are a bit ugly: 50% who get it get pneumonia, 50% of those don't make it. These include those poor folks who get it when they have no immune system at all, so the stats don't exactly apply. So far it is behaving like a regular cold for Linda, and we are going to stay there, thank you very much. She feels much better than a couple of days ago, and figures she is in the last three days of it. My what ever it is, is just starting to peak, so maybe I got it from her.

Day 46: Tuesday, April 6, 2004
I rented "The Princess Bride" Sunday evening, and we all watched it. Nancy hadn't seen this classic before so it was a treat for her. The only problem was that we didn't finish till about 21:30, which was pretty late. With the time change, the kids were pretty slow getting up Monday morning. Nancy told me that if I keep them up late, then I can get them to the bus in the morning. Ooops! I popped over to the apartment last night, to take Linda a bunch of mail, and a big box that had arrived. She received a couple of window danglies, one of which is a solar powered crystal spinner. Both of these came from Deb Smith, Scott's Ex. Linda was doing pretty good, and the folks over at SCCA seem to be thinking that her cold might be allergies, because they are seeing lots of that just now. I didn't stick around very long, because I was feeling a bit stuffy, probably from all the pollinating plants in the world ganging up on my sinuses, all together, simultaneously, at once, as my friend Al would say. That, and I had promised to read to the big kids. When I got home, the book we are reading had gone into hiding, so we had to pull out an emergency backup book.
I talked to Linda after my lunch, and before hers today. It turns out she does have one of the nasty viruses. The truly nasty time for this is before engraftment, which happened weeks ago, so we shouldn't have too much trouble. The main worry is pneumonia, and Ian had them do an X-ray, and everything is being watched very carefully.

Day 44: Sunday, April 4, 2004
Gosh it has been a while since my last update. Linda started getting a cold on Friday, but is seems just like any other cold. The SCCA has put her on isolation procedures, which means they are very careful to not get this from her. The Doc's are all wearing masks, and washing hands 12 times, instead of just six. Yesterday Brian turned 13, so we had the family over, and Linda and Scott popped in for a few minutes at present time, but Scott is real paranoid, so they weren't here long. Brian got 3 CD's he really likes, and a CD player. At one point, after Brian and my sister Linda, wandered off to go to a performance, my brother Gale asked when I had talked to our other brother Bob last. I got out the speaker phone, and we talked for about 45 minutes. After dinner, I went over and hung out with Linda and Scott for a while. Linda went to bed at a reasonable time, but Scott and I were up talking till 01:20, then I drove home.
Linda called a bit ago, and said she now has a slight fever, which means that her temp is up to normal. This is kind of expected, and we aren't getting excited yet.

Day 41: Thursday, April 1, 2004
For the first time in probably a year, I rode my lawnchair bike into work today. Boy does the lack show! I guarantee I will be walking up the hill tonight.
Linda and Scott came by with some leftovers for lunch tomorrow, after their visit to the Bank. Linda seems to be doing fine. Yes, I did have to push the bike up most of the steep parts of the hill, but I made it home fine.

Day 40: Wednesday, March 31, 2004
After Linda was unable to get to the phone early, she called around 10:30. She is feeling great, although still a little itchy. She was looking forward to going outside today, for a walk. She was happy to actually be hungry, with no extra things attached to it. She hadn't had breakfast yet! She has been going through boxes of video tapes that D.J. dredged up to determine what is on them and get them labeled, or recycle them for further use. So far, she has found some good stuff, and some bad stuff. Tonight we have a meeting with someone, which sounds like an insurance sales thing, but I will go anyway, even though it is against by better judgement. One shouldn't encourage salesmen, unless they are selling for you, not to you.
Luckily enough, the sales droid never showed. So I guess I drove to Seattle for a few brownies that Linda had baked, and to see her and Scott. Scott told me they got the right answer at last! They had taken a class about long term care, and asked about driving again. The answer this time was: I the drugs aren't gorking you out, and you feel strong, some driving might be OK. They found the right answer, so they won't ask anymore.
I was up till 00:30 getting 4 Batman's ready to ship,

Day 39: Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Nancy and Linda went to the airport to get the escaped Scott, and get him back working in the mines.

Day 38: Monday, March 29, 2004
I guess today went OK, sort of. I worked until Linda got up, and her face was all a little swollen, with big bags under her eyes. Her scalp had been itching real bad, and they gave her something for that during her clinic visit. Nancy stayed with her overnight.

Day 37: Sunday, March 28, 2004
Today, Nancy got up early and took D.J. to the airport from the apartment at o-dark-thirty.

D.J. did a great job on the house! Thank you D.J., we owe you!

Day 36: Saturday, March 27, 2004
This morning, I woke up with Linda, and while she was sleeping, took my shower, and walked to the corner store to get coffee. Naturally, they were closed on Saturdays, so I used some of Scott's special coffee. Linda was up when I got back, so I cooked her an omelet while she made me some toast, and poured the juice. We handled our respective email, while waiting for Nancy to bring the kids, so we could go on an excursion to an organic farm on Vashon Island where Jennelle, our friends George and Anne Benker's daughter, works. Anne met us at the ferry dock, and we followed her to their rental trailer to get George, and thence to the farm about half a mile away. I guess we woke Jennelle, and her friend Brian up, when we arrived at about 13:00. We had a great picnic lunch that Anne had prepared, while the kids played on the monkey bars, swung on the swing, and generally had a great time. Later we had a tour of the farm, and the kids were loving the sample of fresh arugula, and other stuff. I enjoyed the mustard sample, which was a lot like horseradish. We eventually said goodbye to the farm and went to checkout a lighthouse. We flew a kite on the beach, threw sticks for a unattached golden retriever mix, and had more fun. At about 16:30 we headed out for the ferry home. Linda was pretty tired by 17:45 when we got her home, so we left her, and headed home for diner. After dinner we said thank you and goodbye to D.J. as she drove to spend the night with Linda. Nancy will pick her up at 6:30 tomorrow to take her to her flight back to Kawaii. After I got the kids in bed, I went downstairs to work to get a few units of my product ready to ship on Monday.

Day 35: Friday, March 26, 2004
Linda seems fine this morning, and we have spent some time discussing how D.J. can reorganize the house to greater meet our needs. D.J. is a real dynamo, and is just doing incredible things. I am scheduled to spend tonight with Linda, and I have to be symptom free for 24 hours before I can do that. I think I make it, as yesterday afternoon went event free, and today things appear back to normal. I am not sure when I can arrive, as I expect that I might be neccessary for some of the furniture moving tonight. I guess we decided that my old custom built computer desk is ready to go away. I had this built by my friend, and office mate John Rossum, back in the days of Intel 8080 based computers, and 8" floppy disks. It has been around a long time, but doesn't fit modern computers.
When I got home, Richard was looking at my old computer desk and trying to figure out how he could use it. We ended up cutting out most of the shelf where the CPU had sat, so his monitor could fit into the terminals space. After rather a bunch of work by George Kirkwood, D.J., Nancy, and the rest of the crew, the kids were heading to bed around 9:30, in their freshly separated rooms. Richard and Brian in one room, Robin and Tristan in the other. I don't know about this, having people actually sleeping in 5 out of 6 bedrooms. I normally like to keep this ratio below half.

Day 34: Thursday, March 25, 2004
This entry is GROSS, but funny. Read at your OWN RISK!
This is my log, so I can write about me, right? Here is how I was forced out of bed by a tree! No, there was no storm in Woodinville, and no tree's fell through the house. I wasn't feeling real good, so I had decided I would stay in bed. I had woken up around 3:00 with my guts making lots of noise. I think they were chanting "No More W! No More Bush!". So I ended up getting up at 3:30, 4:30, and 7:30 with rather urgent visits to the bathroom, and had started taking lomotil with the second visit. I had turned on the laptop to send an email to Strobe, saying I was staying home, and one came in saying that the latest version of "Circuit Cellar" was available for download, so I started the download, and went back to sleep. About 8:30, I started poking around in it to see if there were any interresting articles, and there was one. Alright, I will roll over, and prop up my head for easier reading. I pulled up my knees, and put the laptop on them. Everything was going fine, I was puckering a bit, but things were going OK. Then I sneezed! What else could I think than "Oh shit", as I feel warm stuff splash against both ankles?
I tossed the covers off, and tiptoed to the bathroom, and cleaned myself up a bit, then took the washcloth over to the bed to wipe up a bit before taking the linens to the laundry. What did I find in bed? The envy of any of those channel 9 painting instructors! There was this perfect tree, in a medium brown, on the dark blue sheet. Little notches where my feet had been. It was great, too bad I didn't take a picture of it. It might have been my entry into the world of fine art. Kicked out of bed by a stinking tree!

Day 33: Wednesday, March 24, 2004
D.J. and Nancy have been going nuts reorganizing the house. D.J. was up all night working on the hobby room. We had decided that it was time to split the kids bedrooms, by moving the big guys to where the office is now. This involves finding a new place for the office, which is the current hobby room. A lot of stuff in the hobby room has moved out into the play room, including the TV. I think the playhouse has to go outside. I guess we have to be careful what we say around D.J., because she is making it happen! I don't think I will recognize the house when they are done, but I will get used to it.

Thank you D.J. and Nancy!

Day 32: Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Nineteen years ago today, I woke up on my friend Victors couch. As with a lot of nights these days, waking up might have been a strong phrase for what happened, as there hadn't been a lot of sleeping going on. Why was I sleeping on Victors couch? My house in nearby San Jose was full of relatives. I don't remember eating breakfast, or much of anything else before driving over to the Unitarian Church in downtown San Jose. I really felt kind of lonely as I drove up to a spot down the street from the church. That was about to end. We had scheduled to take some pictures before the event, but I think tradition got in the way, and the girls didn't appear in time for that to happen. I think there was something about all the women having to sew on one more pearl, and them refusing to give up the dress to Linda. I remember very little of the ceremony that happened, except that I lip squeaked to her as she walked up the aisle. Yes, that has been going on for quite a while. We spent too much time with the photographer after the ceremony, and not enough with our guests in the room next door. I remember cutting the wonderful cake Nancy had made, and getting one bite each, before getting pulled away for other stuff. The cake had been so good that by time we got back to it, others had finished our pieces, and there was none left. It was still good a year later when we had the top layer, I think in Reno. There was a great party, and we were sad to leave, but we really needed to go to our hotel for a nap. I remember listening to "Prairie Home Companion", about snow, and the differences between snow in Minnesota and snow in Florida, and laughing so hard we almost couldn't breathe. I remember getting dressed again, and going downstairs to Maxi's for an excellent dinner. I remember some other things, but I will just savor those memories.

Linda and I were married March 23, 1985. I look forward to remembering the next 19 years too.

Happy Anniversary, Honey!

Scott dropped Linda off at Strobe around 17:15, and Linda gabbed with the natives while I got my act together to leave. She had sent me flowers in an attempt to embarrass me, unsuccessfully, so she tried again by giving me a red teddy bear that sings "Happy together". That one worked a bit better. We drove by the local movie house, and found that the new Johnny Depp movie "Secret Window" officially started ten minutes ago, and I guess we missed the very first scene. I don't think is was anything to write home about. We went to Kanishka for some Indian food afterwards. Linda was going to crash right after I dropped her off around 21:00, so I went home to get some work done. Not a very exciting Anniversary celebration, but we had fun.

Day 31: Monday, March 22, 2004
I talked to Linda between appointments at the SCCA. She is worried maybe she has gone overboard in the eating department. It was so long that eating was hard to do that she ate anything she could. Now that being able to eat doesn't seem to be the problem it used to be, maybe it is time for another paradigm. I had thought of putting in my two cents here in place of the pair of dimes, but the price probably went up to 2 bits, which has nothing to do with a quarter of a byte, but I am trying to cut back on expenses, so I won't. (If I keep this up, people will start charging Me two bucks just to read it!)
She is feeling just fine, and she and Scott walked over from PGH this morning. I am told that she , Scott, Nancy, and D.J. went to Ivar's Salmon House for dinner, and that is where my yummy lunch came from.
Linda told me she got some painful news today: She will be on cyclosporin to suppress her immune system for a year, and during that time she won't be able to drive. This will put a major cramp in her style. We'll figure out something.

Day 30: Sunday, March 21, 2004
Nancy left early to get D.J. Starr at the airport, and we will meet them at the church. After church, Nancy and D.J. headed out to see Linda. and the guys and I went home for some lunch. After lunch, we went to the bank, got the van washed, and headed for the apartment to pick up the Imax tickets that Linda had mistakenly taken with her yesterday. We then grabbed Scott and went to the Science Center to see the #D Nascar movie. We got to the car at about the time Richard was supposed to be at church. We dropped Scott off, and flew to church, pausing at Taco Bell to grab a bite for Richard, and were only half an hour late.

Day 29: Saturday, March 20, 2004
Here I am, minding my own business, paying bills, and who should walk in, but Linda. She had just finished reading "The DaVinci Code", and she had gone to the church book group meeting, since that is the book they were discussing today. Since she was in Woodinville, she had to come by, to see if we had moved or something. She hadn't been here in five weeks, to the day. She is looking and feeling good, but we didn't let her come to the funeral with me, because the crowd was too big. When I talked to her afterwards, she was getting the kids settled at the hair cutters, and was going to head back to the apartment in the Passat, as I bought the vanagon a new set of tires.
After I took care of that, I went over to drop off the van, and we hung out till Johndude showed up for a visit. He was going to a concert in the Phinney Community Center, which I knew as the John B. Allen cafeteria, when I was going to elementary school there. Linda, Scott, and I went to dinner at a place up Eastlake a bit, called Pete's Steakhouse. The food was excellent, with a view of the east end of Lake Union. I got home in time to read to the big guys, but was too late for the little guys.

Day 28: Friday, March 19, 2004
So far, the last two days have been pretty quiet. Yesterday Linda wasn't hungry, but didn't feel bad. Today her appetite is back, and she is still feeling pretty good. The family and I are probably in quarantine, because Tristan is not holding his food down. Linda asked "How about moving home?", and the answer was "Not yet!". Maybe in a month or so.

Day 26: Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I talked to Linda a couple of times yesterday, and thought I might make it over in the evening, but that didn't come about. I actually slept Monday night, and this is a rare event. I slept last night too! If I were a drinking man, two days of sleep in a row might qualify for braking out the champagne.
Linda IS accepting visitors. Call her at the Pete Gross House (directions) to see what is happening, before showing up. When you arrive, you have to key in her apartment number, 613, and they can unlock the door for you. No big crowds, as it is a really tiny apartment. No Real flowers or plants are allowed in PGH.
Yesterday was a good day for Linda. She and Scott went over to Green Lake for a walk, and had lunch at Spud's. I guess last night was pretty good for her too, but they were up till after 1:00 watching a movie. On the other side of things, they took a chest X-ray Monday, and Troy called and set up a CAT scan of her chest for later in the week. She hasn't talked to anybody who can tell her what is going on yet. I wonder if it has to do with the spot in her lung they have been watching?
I went over after dinner, and hung out for a while. We talked over some business, went for a walk up and down and all around the building, and watched an hour of Law and Order? I went home just after 22:00 to get some sleep.

Day 24: Monday, March 15, 2004
I talked to Scott for a bit as they were on their way out the door to their 10:30 SCCA appointment. Linda did manage to get the stinky pills down, but they didn't stay there. I guess they were down for an hour, but she got sick simetime later. She didn't have a very good night, and wasn't feeling very good. So they have decided that atavan doesn't work for her, and nothing doesn't control the nausea, so they will probably try compazine today.

Day 23: Sunday, March 14, 2004
I guess I never got a round to yesterday. When I talked to her yesterday morning, she was feeling a bit better, but she had just gotten up at around 11:30. She decided it was a day off, as she had no appointments, and nothing to do, so she stayed in, and just hung out. I went over at about 19:30, and we watched "Good Will Hunting" on commercial TV. I understand why I watch so little of that stuff. I think I would rather pay the rental. I discovered that her lower lip is no longer swollen, and she had stopped the pain medication a couple of days ago. She managed her first lip squeak in weeks! She is really on the road to recovery. I got home at 23:30 or so, and noticed the hobby room lights were on, so I went to check and Megan was watching "Benny & Joon". I stood and watched the last ten or fifteen minutes with her, then sent out an email to Lonnie and Chuck in Tucson with the web site address. Linda apparently hadn't responded to a couple of Chucks emails, and he was getting worried.
This morning, I got up to take over a bunch of gatorade, and found Robin up, so I took him with me. Since everybody was asleep when We got there, I made some coffee. Linda got up while I was doing this, I think, and started making noises about Robin staying while I went off to church. I was doing sound, so I couldn't skip. Our Minister Alex Holt did his first sermon since his horrible car accident on Christmas Eve. I would rate this one as about a seven, which I consider pretty good after spending three months mostly in bed. I took a nap in the afternoon, while Nancy went to get Robin. Richard, Brian and I are now in the office doing homework.
I arrived at about 19:45 for a while. Linda had had a pretty good day, but when she tried to finish her yogurt, it tried to come back on her. We spent quite a while debating what to do about that. She decided she would manage to choke down her evening meds without further medication. I had to leave in order to ensure wakefulness for the drive home, at about 22:15.

Day 21: Friday, March 12, 2004
"Time flies when you are having fun". It is hard to believe it has been three weeks since Andi pumped parts of Scott's blood into Linda. I was up till after midnight working on Bruce Sherry Designs stuff, sleep is clearly over rated.
When Nancy and the kids got home last night, I didn't notice that Tristan wasn't with them. I figured that he had been hustled to bed by Nano. Robin was looking for him this morning, and I assumed that he was with Nano. When I called Linda this morning, I found that he had stayed with her overnight.
Linda's pain is listed as "negligible" this morning, and she sounds very good. She says she is very tired, and her digestive system isn't up to snuff, but it is at least working in the proper direction. She is looking forward to spending the day with the kids, when the rest of them show up.

Day 20: Thursday, March 11, 2004
I did sleep pretty good between 22:30 and 4:30, why isn't that enough? Linda called, and said that medically she is just fine, but she is feeling a bit low today. On the health scene, dull is good. We don't want to get "Interesting...". Her platelets are fine, her blood factory is producing hematocrit like she is male, and her ANC is nothing to write home about. Nancy will take most of the kids to visit her tonight, while Robin and I host the other two members of our Camp Fire group at our house.

Day 19: Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Sleeping might be kind of a strong word for what I did at the apartment last night. I did notice a couple of dreams, but when I got up, it seemed that I had gotten in bed about a week earlier. Linda was in bed when I got there, shortly after 22:00. She had about an hour to go in her bag of saline for the day, so she crashed, Scott finished the extended version of "The Fellowship of the Ring", and I worked on a PC layout that was giving me fits. Scott and I got around my problem, the movie ended, and the pump started beeping, all around 23:40. I thereafter went to bed, but sleeping wasn't in the cards.
Oh, you were wondering about Linda! When I got there, she said she had had a real good day. She was a bit too sleepy to interrogate by the time I left. Both she and Scott slept through my shower and breakfast, as near as I could tell. Linda got up to go to the bathroom, and Scott said goodbye from the hide-a-bed as I went through the door.
I talked to Lind a couple of times during the day, and everything seemed to be fine. When I talked to her at 20:30, she was very tired, and about to go to bed as soon as the IV pump finished. They had started the IV much earlier in the day, so it was almost done. As soon as the kids were in bed, so was I.

Day 18: Tuesday, March 9, 2004
Nancy told me Linda was looking pretty good, when she was over there last night. Her lip was still swollen, and it hurt, but it was getting better slowly. Nobody answered when I called, but Linda called me later sounding much better. She says she is settling into the apartment fine, and now is starting to wonder what she is going to do with herself for a month or two there. There is a possibility I will sleep there tonight.

Day 17: Monday, March 8, 2004
I got up at 5:30 to try and pay the bills this morning, and ended up having to go to Merrill Lynch on the way to work to make sure the mortgage withdrawal didn't bounce. I had forgotten to move money from the business account last week. It would appear I am not functioning at full capacity.
The pain meds appear to have worked OK overnight, but there appear to be some problems with nausea management. Linda threw up just before lunch time, and felt better afterwards. After her visit to SCCA, she and Scott walked back to the apartment. She was tired. Somehow, they hadn't quite gotten all the meds right when we left the hospital, and they got all straightened out at SCCA. When I talked to her last, at 20:30, She was feeling pretty good, after her afternoon nap, and her early evening nap. They had plugged in the IV fluids, and she was enjoying the rarity of a silent IV pump.

Day 16: Sunday, March 7, 2004
Linda seemed to be OK when I was there in the morning, but they had to give her some morphine to get her through the night. I didn't think she would get out today. When I got home from church, I heard that she would be getting out, so I grabbed the drugs we had, and zoomed over to the hospital. I got there around 12:30, and we did manage to pry her out by 17:00. She is now residing at the Pete Gross House room 613. I will add some pictures here when I can get it out of the camera. Vonnie Thompson showed up at 15:00, and was very useful in the evenings events. About 18:00, we all started noticing it was starting to get hungry out. The only problem, was there wasn't much in the way of food in the apartment as yet. We figured out some kind of a shopping list, and Vonnie and I went shopping at the QFC in lower Queen Ann. The Burger King was closed for the rest of us, so we hit McDonalds for Scott, Vonnie, and Me. When we got back, Vonnie and I had to eat pretty quickly, so I could give her a ride to her car at UWMC, and get home for story time.

Day 15: Saturday, March 6, 2004
I called Linda at about 9:00, and she was sounding stronger. She says her lip is feeling raw, but maybe it isn't as swollen. We did discuss whether or not she is getting too friendly with her morphine button, which we have to get her off of before she gets out. My sister showed up for the night at 22:00, with a movie in hand. Linda fell asleep shortly after they started, but my sister apparently made it quite a bit farther. We had to stop talking, because the 'flock of docs' walked in.

Day 14: Friday, March 5, 2004
Today, Linda, Scott, and I meet with the Transition team at 13:00 to learn about transitioning Linda out of the hospital. Scott has a 15:00 pump class. I am supposed to sign paperwork at Pete Gross House (PGH) before 15:30, when they turn into pumpkins. Depending on timing, I may get to the pump class too. Nancy is on the schedule to spend tonight with Linda. I am a little worried about Nancy, as she crashed out at 21:00 last night, and she is normally kind of a night owl. More as I hear it.
When I talked to Linda around 10:00, I could hear her, so her voice was a bit stronger. Cathy Blair, the transition person, came in. We need to get Linda off the PCA pump for pain medication before we can pry her out. Cyclosporin (no grapefruit) will wait till after her morning visit and labs. Cyclosporin wastes magnesium, so they may need to boost that. Currently scheduled for departure on Sunday. She will have an appointment with a pharmacist who will get her all set up with her pharmacopeia. I need to find the bag of drugs she was on before she checked in, and bring them for the meeting with the pharmacist. We went over the operation of the simple pump, and there is a class for the more complex pump. We have to flush Linda's line before we pump in anything, because the heparin that is kept in the line is not compatible with a lot of drugs. The simple pump is for the vancomyecin that she may need if her ANC doesn't make it up 24 hours before discharge. She still has no immune system, and they won't give her new immunizations until she is one year out of transplant.
I went off to PGH to sign in, and pay the first months rent. Scott went to Pump class, and I took the shuttle over to SCCA and joined him half an hour late. We finished off the class, and I had him take me over to PGH so he could find the parking spot, and so we could move him in. We discovered that the internet connection works when I plugged into it, and picked up mail. When I got home, I called Linda, and found that Scott had woken her up a few minutes before, and she was going to move to the bed, and do some serious napping.

Day 13: Thursday, March 4, 2004
I slept reasonably well, for sleeping on plastic. I didn't notice much between midnight, and six. I was awake a couple of times, but I didn't notice Linda get up once. After the 6:00 vitals, I crawled in bed with Linda for an hour, she slipped under my arm, and put her head on my shoulder, and her arm across my chest, and even I slept a little. At 7:30, I got up to shower, and get breakfast. Linda was asleep when I got back from the shower, so I snuck off to grab breakfast. Linda is looking better, and she seems to be feeling better. When I got back from getting breakfast, there was a Doc in and she thought she could see improvement. Sherry is now unhooking Linda from all her hoses, so we can go for a walk without the tree. We did at least a mile, but we kind of lost count. The traffic was too bad to try to cross the bridge anyway. I think she figured that as long as she kept walking, I wouldn't leave for work, and she was right.

Day 12: Wednesday, March 3, 2004
This morning when I called, Linda was feeling about the same as yesterday, I.E. not very good. By the time I arrived, her lip was feeling much better, but all I could see, was that it was still swollen, and she had just covered it with cream. Her smile came back for a bit as we started out for a walk. We had to pause for a couple to handle some blood beepage, as the bag of red blood cells had finished. It turned out that her nurse was just going into another patients room, right where we were, so it was very convenient. It looks like the RBC's are heavier than the saline, because there is a pile of them in the bottom of magic tube, and in the part rising to go into the pump, but the part going down and then to Linda is much lighter in color. She is supposed to get another bag tonight. We may watch "Gosford Park", which I remember we liked in the theater, but I can't say I remember the movie. Linda's voice is so weak, that she almost has to shout in order for me to understand what she says. I have done some interpreting for the nurse, and answered questions when Linda couldn't make herself heard.

Day 11: Tuesday, March 2, 2004
I hadn't planned on going to this weeks Caregiver Class, but Linda called around 10:00, and asked if I would, so I changed my plan. When I had talked to her just after 8:00, she was feeling pretty good. I left Strobe at 12:30, and walked into the class on the dot of 13:00, but the class had already started. If you are clueless, wash your hands. If you are in doubt, wash your hands. If you are absolutely positive, wash your hands anyway. If anything changes, call. After class, I popped into the hospital to see how she was, and she wasn't feeling good at all. Her lip was swollen, ugly looking, and very painful. Last time her lip looked that way, she got platelets, but not this time. No one else was there, so I asked if she wanted me to stay, and yes, so I did. I went out to the car, and got the computer, and worked in the room for a while. Colleen Squier came in at 16:00, with a movie, "Joe meets the Volcano", or something like that. It had Tom Hanks, with Meg Ryan playing three parts. After, I headed home for dinner, but ended up going around the lake, because I couldn't get to 520.

Day 10: Monday, March 1, 2004
Linda had just finished her first half mile of the day, when I called at 8:15. She had been unhooked from the hoses for her walk, and she was longing to be hooked up again, so she could have a couple of clicks of morphine. Apparently her mouth hurts a lot. We didn't talk long, because the nurse had come in for vital signs, and to hook her back up again.
I popped in for a few minutes at lunch, and Linda had some good news for me. She had gotten a call from Pete Gross House, the Hutch Hostel, asking for an update on possible discharge timing. She then asked the "flock-o-docs", when they wandered by. Since she is still able to take medication orally, and she appears to be able eat enough to keep the nutrition folks off her back, they said MAYBE BY FRIDAY! She may stick around till Monday, since Pete Gross House doesn't do move ins on weekends. While she was telling me this, I had to sit on the edge of the bed to be able to hear her. Her lower lip is pretty swollen, and she has it coated with lydocaine, I think, to help the pain.
Later in my visit, Pre-Doc Kyle stopped by to check on things, and he asked where the pain was mostly, and she answered in her lips, but the medication was keeping it under control. He suggested that they could switch to IV meds if she was having trouble swallowing, and she said she could still swallow the pills. Mostly the pain stuff makes her sleepy, and she was falling asleep, pretty much the whole time I was there. She fell asleep again after Kyle left, and I departed to finish my lunchtime errands.
I got a report from Mary Miller, that Linda had 40 minutes of shaking chills right after I left. She had been cold, and I had gotten her a warm blanket, before I left. They ended up sending her down to Radiology for a chest Xray, but they didn't expect to find anything.After that, Mary heaped on the warm blankets, and Linda slept for an hour and a half.
Sometime in the afternoon, Nancy called to see if I wanted to spend the evening with my wife? Sure! I went in after work, arriving around 17:30. She had started watching "The Family Man" with Carol Nelson, before I got there, and we finished it, after another half mile of walking. Sometime in there, Maria, the nurse, spent a while convincing us that once engraftment happens, her mouth and throat will get better in just a day or two. The night watch, Jo Prussia, arrived at 21:55, and I pushed off around 22:15.

Day 9: Sunday, February 29, 2004
Linda was already doing her laps when I arrived at about 7:15. We completed her morning mile, and went back to her room. They gave her some platelets to help with the bleeding last night, and her lips were back to normal. She had been getting along with the morphine, but it was making her be rather sleepy. Her breakfast showed up, and she was trying hard to eat the malt-o-meal, but her eyes kept slamming shut. I could hear it from where I was sitting. Eyes slamming shut, is a horrible sound. I had to leave to help get the kids ready for church. After church, Nancy took Brian, Robin and Tristan to see their Mom, while I worked. Richard was off to ice skating with the youth group. I called her around noon to let her know that Nancy and the kids were coming, and she was awake by then.

Day 8: Saturday, February 28, 2004
I slept a lot better than I expected to, and maybe better than Linda. She said she had to get up to go to the bathroom every hour, but I only noticed three times after midnight. She is definitely being a "hoarse whisperer" now. We discussed switching pain strategies, because it is getting pretty bad. After I got back from the bathroom, we went for a half mile walk. I should probably get home to see the kids, before I come back around noon with Alex. Linda's cheeks, and throat are looking a bit puffy and swollen. I am not seeing her smile as much as she was last week. This is to be expected, but it still hurts to see it. I wish I could be there more. It is good to know that there is almost always someone with her, even if it isn't me. I miss visiting her every morning, like I did when she was at Evergreen.
When I got back with Alex, Linda said she was feeling better than yesterday. She and Alex started to talk about sensitive church stuff, so I left to have a cup of coffee in the Family Room. I had already had two cups of coffee, so I decided to have decaf, but the coffee in the vacuum carafe was cold, and the high test one was empty. I tried to heat the decaf up in the microwave, but while I was preparing to make a new pot of hot decaf, the cup boiled over, and made a wonderful mess. I discovered that there was a fresh pot of high test, so I poured it into the carafe, splashing it all over. I just couldn't get anything right. I eventually got it all cleaned up, and fresh coffee made. When I was done with my cup, I went back to Linda's room, and chatted a bit, before I took Alex back home. While I had been gone, the nurse had set Linda up with an extra machine to give her a little morphine whenever she pokes a button. I don't think she had pressed it before I left.
About 16:00, I left to go do a business errand in the U-district, and stopped off at the hospital afterwards. Linda had been sleeping most of the time I had been gone. Just after I got in, the nurse came in, and wanted to make sure she could wake Linda up, what with the new machine and such. Linda decided to be awake for a while, and she and I watched the rest of "The African Queen". I ate her dinner, because she couldn't. The nurse was suggesting that she really needed to poke the button more. Between the time we started the movie again, and when we finished, Linda had kind of purple lips, and I figured that must have been from the chocolate pudding she ate, but the nurse was concerned, because she looked around in Linda's mouth, and found some bleeding. The purple, is basically blood blisters in her lips, I guess. They appear to expect this, but they watch it very closely. The changing of the guard happened around 19:20, when Nancy arrived, and I went home to read story to the kids before bed. Nancy will stay, till Ryan walks from work to the hospital, just after midnight. He will spend the night with Linda, before walking back to work, to be there at 8:00 tomorrow morning. What a really stupid work schedule he has.

Day 7: Friday, February 27, 2004
Linda called just after 8:00 this morning. It seems that although the pain is worse, it is easier to swallow. She is losing her voice, and sounds hoarse. She started taking oxycodone, last night, for the pain, which eases the pain, but she doesn't like the way she feels on it. An Irish Shaman is coming this afternoon to do his thing on her. I WILL show up this afternoon, and probably spend the night with her.
On the way in to see Linda, I stopped to talk to Andi the nurse. It turns out that she knew my Mom, and my Sister from girl scouts. I wandered in around 16:15, and she was all alone, and not feeling very good. Her voice is very quiet, because her throat hurts so much. She convinced the docs to give her tylenol every four hours. I guess she took the oxycodone at 3am, and hasn't had any since, but still feels groggy from it. She started spiking a fever as we finished the movie we started on Sunday.
We watched "The First Wives Club", which was fairly funny, and then we started "The African Queen", but Linda was falling asleep. I guess I preempted Cathy Davis's overnight stay, by staying myself.

Day 6: Thursday, February 26, 2004
Linda called at lunchtime today. Everything is pretty much OK, But her throat is getting more painful. She is still eating and talking, but she had an ice pack on it as we were talking. She did say that it was very nice to have someone in the room with her at night. While we were talking, Carol Crow stopped by to see how she was doing. On the way home, I stopped to have a visit with Alex Holt, our minister. We had a nice talk, and we decided I would take him over to visit Linda on Saturday. I might stop by after the kids go to bed tonight. Well, I didn't make it. After I read story to the big guys, I woke up in the chair, 20 minutes later, and decided that maybe I should just go to bed. I proceeded to do that.

Day 5: Wednesday, February 25, 2004
This morning we spent playing phone tag. I had forgotten to turn my phone back on after having to turn it off at the hospital last night, so when Linda called twice, she was bounced home. I called once while she was out walking, and again while she was in the shower.
This morning, her throat is a bit more sore, but she is still able to eat, and swallow pills. The doc didn't expect her to be able to swallow pills this morning, so she had to prove it. He decided maybe he should go see someone who needed him, as she obviously didn't. As of slightly before noon, she finds swallowing a bit painful, but has no problem talking.

Day 4: Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Linda was told by one of the flock of doc's that she was a poster patient for transplant, and that he wished that all his patients would have it as easy as Linda. When I had stopped in after dinner, she said that her throat was feeling a bit sore. Ken came in to do the vital signs, and he decided that the inside of her throat was getting a bit red. He offered to change her over to IV medication, instead of pills. Lisa Yost came to spend the night with Linda. We ended up watching some more of Starman. I looked over at Linda about 22:15, and her eyes were closed, so I packed up and went home, leaving Lisa to watch the store.

Day 3: Monday, February 23, 2004
This morning, I was just finishing paying bills, when Linda called me. Everything seemed to be fine then. Around quarter after three, I gave her a call to see how she was doing, and she said she was "feeling a bit prickly". That is to say that from her shoulders up, she felt like she was getting prickled. She did say that they started vancomyecin today. Yesterday she had noticed some tenderness near her hickman line, and today it is worse, and the skin is red where the line is snaking around under her skin. I hope we stick with the "boring" mode, and stay away from the "interesting" or "complicated" stuff. There are times when it is good to be boring.
I stayed home and read to the kids this evening. Linda had called asking if I was coming over to finish the movie we started yesterday, but I figured I needed to read to the kids, which I hadn't done it two nights, and she was pretty tired.

Day 2: Sunday, February 22, 2004
I was up before the crack of dawn, so I could go see Linda before church. She was fine, and we did a half mile walk, before I had to leave, to hit the store, and get home to get the kids moving. We did the church thing, I did the nap thing, we did the dinner thing, and I went back to see Linda again. She was computing for the first while, then we decided to watch "Starman". We were only thirty minutes in, or so, before Linda was falling asleep, and I went home.

Day 1: Saturday, February 21, 2004
I sent Nancy over to see Linda by herself, to give her a break She has been doing a wonderful job of handling the kids and needed a break. I spent part of the afternoon chasing around with Richard to get a new case for his computer. After dinner, I tried to rent "Tammy Faye", which was suggested by the SCCA chaplin: Steven King, but Hollywood didn't have it. I proceeded to rent "Evelyn" in which we discovered that Pierce Brosnan can actually act. It is about an Irish father, who has to go all the way to the Irish Supreme Court to get his kids back, after his wife runs away to Australia. Linda seemed to be OK, but she kept disappearing to the bathroom a lot. It is 23:11, and I'm going to bed, good night.

Friday, February 20, 2004
Some people call this Linda's second birthday, as she gets new blood today. When I got in around 9:15 she told me the cells should be ready around 11:00. She is on the phone with Scott, letting him know when he can give final orders to his cells. Most of them should be in by the time he can get here, as he has more apheresis to do, but it does take two hours for them all to march, single file into Linda's line.
Here is Linda getting her new cells. She started just about 12:00. I had waited for quite a while, and then had to scurry to the cafeteria to grab some lunch, and hustle back. Andi had arrived while I was gone, maybe 10 minutes. Now it is 12:56, and there go the last of them down the line. Every last one will be in by about 13:00. Linda is pointing to the end of the cells going. Andi got all but maybe 0.1" in, and then flushed them all in. Andi has been doing these transplants for over 20 years.
Teri and Dani had to leave at 13:15 to get Teri to the airport, so she could go back to Santa Cruz. Lori McConnel came in at about the same time. Linda appears to be feeling fine, after getting a bunch of extra red cells this morning. Lori left, when Scott showed up around 14:00. Somewhere in there, the flock of doc's showed up. Then they decided to give another unit of red blood cells. Later, Scott was having some bowel problems, and went off to rest in the family room. He was feeling a bit better later, and he and I went off to the Northlake Tavern for pizza. While we were waiting for pizza, Scott told me about some web research he did. He found out the the number they were looking for yesterday was between 5 and 10,000,000 cells per kilogram of Linda, and the final count was 6.02 million.

Thursday, February 19, 2004
Linda gets a day of rest today, if you don't count all her visitors. Scott is doing all the work today. Here is Scott all hooked up to the magic machine. The stuff of Life! THANK YOU SCOTT! The target today, is to get between 5 and 10,000,000 stem cells from Scotts blood. The process should take two to three hours. They will then take them to a lab, and count them. If there are enough, the cells he donates tomorrow will be used for research, otherwise they will go to Linda. The apheresis machine takes blood from Scotts right arm, puts it through a centrifuge, to separate it into red blood cells, white blood cells, which are lighter, and plasma. It then takes the white cells, and puts them in the bag with red stuff in the picture of Scott. It takes the plasma, represented by the vertical blue line on the machine, and the red cells, red line on the machine, puts them back together, and pumps them all back into Scotts left arm. When the cells are all done getting counted, washed, permed, blow dried, and had their other dealer prep, Linda gets them as a transfusion tomorrow.
Another dinner at Dick's, on the way to a short business meeting, followed by watching "Spaceballs" with Linda and Scott. Scott gave me the news that the count was 5.88 million cells, so tomorrows donation goes to research. We have no idea what the schedule for the transplant is tomorrow, but it isn't for lack of asking. Linda wasn't feeling very good, and was having a difference of opinion on whether she had gotten some of her meds. They ended up calling the day nurse at home, and even though she had documented that she had given Linda the meds, neither she nor Linda could remember her actually doing that. Somewhere in there, the nurse came in to check vitals, and came back about 20 minutes later to get full lay down and standing blood pressures, because Linda had lost some weight, and maybe she was losing fluid. The doc decided this was the case, and added another half liter of saline over the next two hours. After she got her meds, she did actually laugh once toward the end of the movie.

Wedesday, February 18, 2004
When I arrived at the hospital, Dick's milkshake in hand, Scott and Linda were computing away. Scott had figured out what the thing was with Linda's being able to send email. It seems that he needed to update the Outlook Express, and things started behaving themselves. Shortly, Erika and Ami showed up to do the Cytoxin thing. That got going, and the SCCA Transition Coordinator, Ann Breen, came in and explained the "Case Rate" thing to us. She also explained some other things. We had a great discussion with Ami about the research they were doing. It seems that they have discovered that people vary in at least a 14 to 1 range on how fast they metabolize the cytoxin. Here is a picture Scott took of Erika setting up Linda's chemo. After the chemo was done, Linda took a shower, and everybody else went off on various errands. I tried to work for a bit. After a while everybody came back, and we were playing with Scotts camera figuring out if we could just put my pictures on it's compact flash card. While this was going on, Linda layed down, and Teri asked how she was doing. She wanted some time alone with Teri, so Scott, Dani, and I went to the family room for a while. After a bit, Teri showed up at the door, and told us they were going for a walk if we wanted to come. They had done a half mile before, while I was working. Linda told me on the walk that she and Teri had had a good cry and hug session. Everybody else was still there when I left at 18:00.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Tristan came into the bedroom and climbed into my bed, just as I was about to get up, because he had had a bad dream. I snuggled him for about ten minutes, explaining at just like he was scared, Mom was scared too, and he had to share me. While I was in the shower, Jaymes, the cat, snuggled up next to him. It was hard to leave. I got up to Linda's room at 7:05, and they were getting her ready to go down for the last radiation treatment. They hustled us out about 10 minutes before I would have left for a 7:30, but she was getting RADs at 7:30. They opened the door after the first 3:30 segment, which bothered me, as I was in the waiting area, then they opened up again about a minute later. As I went through the control room, I could see she was squirming behind the plexiglas shield. Here is a picture of Lee adjusting the shield in front of Linda yesterday. When they pulled the shield out of the way, Linda sank to the floor, then layed down. She was feeling like she would pass out. They decided to give her a half liter of saline, and that seemed to help, as she made it through the rest of the treatment. We had to hang out down there after, so that Dr. Korb could come and talk to her. We got back upstairs, and she had some breakfast, and a whole flock of Doc's came in to introduce themselves. Well, they weren't all doc's, one was a P.A., one was a student, and two didn't get intruduced. They didn't hang long, and now Linda is going to nap, so I will go to work till lunchtime.
I got back at 13:00, and Ami from the Hutch was just starting her spiel. She brought in a special refrigerator for the blood samples they will take, because they are really paranoid about the special samples they will be taking. This is because Linda is taking part in a study to try to adjust the amount of cytoxin they give people. They took a sample before the cytoxin, and one after, then they take several more, to determine just how well she absorbs it, to adjust how much they give her tomorrow. Ami took the first samples back to the Hutch a bit ago, and another poor sucker will show up at 5:00 tomorrow morning to collect the rest of the samples, so they can examine them before Linda gets her dose tomorrow. Later in the afternoon, four shrinks from the Hutch showed up to see how Linda was doing, and find out how she was getting along without her psyche meds. After they left, she took a shower, then we, Teri, and Dani went for a half mile walk around the floor. That is 5 laps around the legal places she can go. I hit the freeway at 18:01 to go home to the kids, and dinner.

Monday, February 16, 2004
It all went without a hitch, treadment wise this morning. I arrived at about 7:25, and she was still kind of snoozing. We wandered down to the Cancer Center just about on time, and Lee was back. She had Linda get up on the stand, and fired up the machine. While I was waiting, I went to the cafeteria for a cup of coffe, as the espresso bar didn't open till 8:30, it being a holiday to celebrate my birthday. Well, Strobe doesn't have the day off, but a lot of folks do. After Linda had breakfast, we both took a nap. She was still sleeping when I snuck down to the cafeteria for lunch. Just after 13:00 Teri Hart, and her Sister Danielle Goodwin walked in, and just a few minutes later, Scott, Nancy, Robin, and Tristan showed up. We had quite the party for a while, till it was time to go for the afternoon treatment. Teri and Dani went out to lunch, because Dani couldn't find anything in the cafeteria she could eat. Scott, Nancy, and the kids ate in the cafeteria, while Linda was getting zapped. Just one more to go. We spent a while chatting in the cafeteria afterwards, and eventually went back upstairs. Linda, Teri, Dani, and I went for a walk around the floor, completing 3 laps, almost 0.3 miles. I left about 17:30 for dinner with the two small kids, Nancy, Scott, Ryan, and Megan at home. I had another piece of my birthday cake. Scott will check on Linda on his way back to his hotel. He is starting to feel the effects of the shots they are giving him. They are giving him about 4.5 times the amount of GCSF that they used to give Linda. Yesterday morning, his white count was 6000, with normal being 4000 to 10,000. This morning his count was 36,000. I expect that tomorrow, he will really know it. Tomorrow, I get up really early, so I can be there for the 7:30 treatment, and the first round of the cytoxin chemo agent, then I have to get to work.

Sunday, February 15, 2004
I got in around 7:40, but had forgotten to have breakfast. Linda was standing up getting ready to brush her teeth feeling much better than yesterday. We agreed to meet in the Cancer Center, and I would get a bit of breakfast. Yesterday we were delaying things, and today it is their turn. Mitch the tech has been fooling with the machine for at least the last 45 minutes trying to get it to jump through all the appropriate hoops. He said it warmed up fine, but there was just one little thing that didn't seem quite right.
9:12AM Apparently Mitch talked with just about everybody in the radiology department, and the University about the numbers that the machine was giving him, and they decided that it was probably OK. She is in place, everything is adjusted, and we are going to go ahead. The poor guy who had the 9:00 appointment showed up on time, but they are delaying him for an hour, because of all the fuss with the machine. Everything went fine for the treatments, and we were all done by 9:45, and I wheeled Linda back to her room. Scott and Sandy dropped by for a bit around 11:00, and they will come relieve me tonight so I can be with the kids for bedtime.
The second TBI treatment came off without a hitch, then we went to Radiology for a chest X-ray. We had just done two, but they had been with the lung gaurds, so they didn't count, I guess. Joy did mention that that was the last one with lung gaurds, so it should go quicker with the rest of the treatments. They did add another treatment at 7:30 Tuesday morning, to replace the one we didn't get in yesterday. This way, it doesn't affect the rest of the schedule.

Saturday, February 14, 2004
Play On! That is what Linda's construction hat said as we walked around the thirty inch thick movable concrete wall of the radiation treatment room. The wall moves back and forth on an actual railroad track! They tell me that the accelerator lives inside eight feet of concrete. Lee adjusts the position of some 2 inch thick lung guards that they have had custom made to match Linda's lungs. She attaches 8 photo diode leads to different parts of Linda so they can check exactly how much radiation Linda is getting at various places. I asked how much radiation Linda will be getting, compared to someone in Hiroshima, for instance. The answer is not much. Linda will be getting 1200 Roentgens?, whereas someone with a tumor might get 7 or 8000. Susan, Lee, and I leave the room, the door starts closing with a whirr, and stops with a loud clunk, and a bit of a rattle. Lee takes a quick X-ray to check the placement of the guards, and while she is developing that, I pick out some music for Linda to listen to while the actual zapping takes place. The door closes again, and they give her three, three minute 30 second shots with 10 seconds between. When they are done, we go in again, and turn Linda around, and Lee sets up the different back side shields. We do the X-ray check, and off we went again.
We were going to have a bite of brunch with Scott and Sandy, but on the way out of the hospital, Linda noticed that she had forgotten some of her drugs on the kitchen counter, so off we went home. I managed to get her back to SCCA just a few minutes late for her blood draw, and by the time we got upstairs, we were only 1 minute late. We waited for a while, and I decided to use the laptop to hurry them up, and it worked! I got to type in less than one sentence before they called us in. Now we are in our usual room 10, waiting for them to show up.
We were just about done, when Linda thought she was feeling nauseus, so I ran down to the garage to get her bag of drugs. When I got back to the room she was gone! I found her next door, and started sorting out the drugs to find the nausea ones. By the time I was done doing that, she wasn't sure she wanted to take any. Right now, she is huddling under a couple of blankets, and she asked for some music, which the laptop is now supplying. After another couple of blankets, she decided to take some benadryl after all. We are going to skip the now trip out for lunch, and maybe catch a bite on the way over to the hospital, or maybe in the cafeteria. Scott and Sandy are coming over here. Scott spent a while wandering around looking for some yogurt for Linda to eat, but she doesn't seem to be very receptive. I will get her up in a few minutes to wander over to the UWMC.

Well, that didn't work, I guess. She was sitting up, so I went to bring the car to the front door, and Scott was going to wheel her down. Shortly after I left, she started throwing up. Sandy called me, to tell me it would be a few minutes. Ten minutes later, Scott called and told me to come back up. I parked the car back in the garage, went up, and Linda got into the wheelchair, and off we went. After turning 1 turn too early, we got to the UWMC, where I got another chair, and wheeled her into the cancer center. I got back after parking the car, and she was half way into the duds they wanted her in, but she didn't think she could stand up. After a while we moved her out to the recovery room, and they brought in the next victim (patient). On the way, she threw up again, but now she is starting to look and feel a bit better. As of the moment I don't think I will get her out of here for a month or so.
She almost made it into the last treatment of the day, she was in position, with a heater to keep her warm, when they put the plexiglas shield in front of her, she lost it, and threw up some more. They gave her more IV zofran, and waited about 20 minutes for it to set in, but she still couldn't stand up. The problem is that the X-ray machine they are using needs her to be about ten feet away from the head, so the beam can spread, and that requires that they turn it horizontal, and have Linda standing with a bicycle seat and handles for support. If she can't stand, they can't do the treatment. In the end, we went to 8Northeast (eigth floor northeast corner), and are settling into room 8256. It is just past 18:00, and Linda is resting. I think I will take a nap. A little after 20:00 Linda grudgingly allowed me to go to the cafeteria, which was of course closed. I managed to convince the vending machines to fork up with a couple of burritos. When I got back, she was mostly asleep, and I coerced her into letting me go home at 21:00. Back at 7:00.