CALM AFTER THE STORM

Thank you for those of you wrote comments on my blog which really helps my sanity. I read all of them and digest what you say since so many times they are so helpful.

After I signed off several nights ago when I was venting to the ninth degree, I went potty in my downstairs bathroom. When I flushed, it overflowed onto the rug and soaked it. We had a plunger but for the life of me I could not find it anywhere. I think that we must have loaned it to someone. I just put the cover onto the toilet so I would not use it till I got a plunger the next day. I think I finally hit the sack at 2AM when I felt somewhat calm where I felt I could sleep. I did.

I headed  to Home Depot and bought two heavy duty plungers, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. I stopped at Publix and picked up Joe his Raspberry Lemonade with an additional stop at CVS to get him some chapstick, antiseptic liquid, ear thermometer, a new weekly pill box. At Publix I also had them make some of their delicious heroes which Joe and I love.

I got back to the hospital about 1:30PM since I was not in any rush to get there because of what happened the day before. Joe had called me on my cell and home phone. I did not answer either one on purpose to make me feel I had some control over my life besides taking care of him. Joe was happy to see me and asked me how I was feeling and I told him "Better." He made no mention of the previous days outburst and appeared to ignore it. BUT, he did make a positive change. He spoke up to the nurses. Asked what medications (pills) they were giving to him and why. He would remind them about what he needed. Tremendous progress was advanced by Joe. I just kept quiet. He even asked me if I had anything to add to the nurse and doctor. Thank you, Lord. I suppose that is better than an apology and I will take it.

Dr. Heffner is very pleased with Joe's chemotherapy results and was surprise how well he responded with no ill side effects. He even stated that he was pretty sure that they could get Joe's Mantle Cell Lymphoma into remission which was music to both our ears. Heffner ordered two units of packed red blood to boost up his hemoglobin which got down to 7. His hematocrit got really low to about 20 and there was concern that he was bleeding someone but he was not. Joe is tough! I left early that night at about 7:30PM to head home.

Once I got home, I tried to get on my notepad but the touch pad was not working. Being so tired, I decided to wait till the next day to call support where I was on the phone for 10 hours! Yes, 10 hours and it still was not resolved. In fact, it caused other issues.I tried to download the Touchpad drvier from the ASUS website but after trying five DVD's, I gave up.  I even ran out of the house at 10:30PM to Walmart to get a flash driver to load the touchpad driver from Joe's computer so I could load it on mine. Without having a touch pad or a mouse, it was about impossible to move around the screen to get it to do what they wanted me to do. They told me to buy a mouse and back up my files that I did not want to lose, and send the notepad back to them and they would get it back to where it was when I first got the notepad. UGH! I just gave up for now till my brain recovers from all the bottlenecks. I was successful in getting the toilet unstopped. YEAH, Bonnie, Miss Plunger of the year!

Today is Sunday and my goal was to get the Comcast HD Digital Box working with Joe's new TV. His sister, brother in law and niece had taken it out of the huge box and assembled it as well as the TV stand for it to be attached to when we were in Houston but could not get the TV to work since we needed a digital HD cable box. I had ordered it last week from Comcast so it would be at home when we got back from Atlanta. It was a bit challenging but after two hours and one hot shower during the download time, it was working. The picture is amazing. Joe is going to love it.

On the way to the hospital I stopped at Jason's to get a sandwich to take out for myself that I could eat at the hospital which worked out great. When I arrived to Joe's room about 1:45PM, he was starting to eat lunch so we were able to eat together. All day long we watched football games along as reading the Sunday paper. We watched our second favorite team, Jacksonville Jaguars, get beat by Payton Manning. The next game was the Falcons playing Seattle at 4PM. The Falcons killed them. Matt Ryan was in a special zone all day long. The Falcons are in the playoffs no matter what happens the next two weeks. The Falcons are 12-2 and it is the best team they have ever had. I looked at buying some Falcon/Saints tickets for MNF but the cheapest was $189 a seat. Forget about it!



Joe should be getting discharged from Emory University Hospital tomorrow if all continues to go well. It will depend on his blood counts in the morning.

Joe's sister, Donna, visited him today for two hours and he enjoyed it so very much. His brother, Drew, from Columbia, South Carolina called later and they had a nice chat. Linda Redman gave me a call from our church and that she had flowers for us but flowers are not permitted in the chemo rooms of patients so I told her to leave them at the front door tomorrow. I love colorful flowers and enjoy looking at them.

Good night. Thank you for your prayers. I will be going home shortly since I am getting sleepy and I need to get to the hospital early to meet with the doctor and discharge nurse.

Ciao!