June 12, 2012

A fairly non-eventful day. We got up at 7, instead of 6 (on clinic days), had coffee that Ramiro made, then eventually had breakfast at home. We walked around the complex (25 min), then showered and changed clothes. Ramiromtook me to look,for a Payless shoes so,I could buy a pair of sandals appropriate for some of the clothes I have here. All I have with me ate my gold Naot sandals, some flip flops, and sneakers. The Naots are starting to feel too big because the steroids have had an anti-inflammatory effect on me and my feet feel as if they have shrunk at least half a size. My rings are too big, too, for,the same reason. After a quick stop at Ulta to buy brow color, we went to the Payless at the mall, then to Luby's for lunch. Finally to Walmart for a few groceries, and then home. The weather was breaking and a thunderstorm was rolling in. We got lots of lightning and thunder, a few drops of rain but no more. Most of the rain seems to,have been south of us, toward Burleson. Spent the afternoon reading. Yesterday I went to the little "lending library" at the transplant floor of the hospital and borrowed two books. While there our apt neighbor (wife of a kidney transplant patient from Austin) told me that the 7th floor has a more extensive library. She was on the 8th floor saying goodbye to,people. They have been discharged after a three month stay (standard for liver patients) and they are going home. This morning I saw Howe taking stuff out to,their car and also,taking things to another neighbor who is also a liver patient. The second patient is from Pampa, and he has about one more month to,stay here. Mae met Botha purples the day that we moved in, and at that point the Pampa couple had been here a month. That was 4 weeks ago, so,he's been here 2 months. His wife looks as if she was burned in a fire. She has scar tissue all over her face that looks like a skin graft. She's nice looking, so,I,imagine she's had lots of plastic surgery to,reconstruct her face. She told me that her husband had gotten ammonia poisoning of the brain when he was still at home, and she tookmhim to the local hospital. She wanted the doctor to call the Baylor nurse that was her contact for the transplant (the man was listed at that point), but the doctor kept saying, I'm a doctor, why would I call a nurse at another hospital? Ugh! He did, eventually, and of course the Baylor nurse immediately knew what to direct him him to do. But after that incident, the wife decided that they needed to move to Austin with her sister so that he'd have access to better medical facilities and also be closer to Ft. Worth. As it was, when he got the transplant call, he was so,sick that he could not travel by car and had to get ambulanced up here. I think the wife's name is Mary, but I don't know his name or the name of the Austin couple. We are supposed to have lunch with the ARCO crowd at Pappadeaux's in Arlington tomorrow. it'll be Steve Molina, Ross Lind, Norma Rosner, maybe Lillian kirstein, maybe Bill Keffer. Patrick is doing to a golf tournament, and Jim Coffee is out of town would have loved to see them. At 5:30 p.m. I got a call from Tim Keefe, Transplant Coordinator. He said the earliest that I can get the PD catheter removed is Friday, June 15, at 11:30 a.m. That means I'll have to do clinic on Thursday, and that will also serve as the lab work for pre-op assessment. Then instead of going to clinic on Wed. of next week as originnally scheduled, I'm supposed to go to clinic on Monday for surgical follow up. That works out well because Monday I needed to go to the hospital for the 4th and last of the nutrition classes. Since I didn't have clinic that day, I was going to have to make a special trip to the hospital just for the class. This way, I'll do clinic and class on Monday, and hopefully be free the rest of the week until the following Monday. Dr. Marlon Levy (I'm Awesome) is doing the surgery.