Home!!

I'm home! Last night the doctor decided that there was no reason to keep me in the hospital any longer, and decided to send me home in the morning. I still have to be on oxygen for a while, but I can do that at home. The people should be here sometime in the next half hour to get that all set up, but in the meantime I have my temporary tank.

It's so nice and quiet here! I have already taken a nap, and while I'm not allowed to shower yet, I think this afternoon I might shampoo my hair. Growing up, the only shower was in our basement, where it was very cold, so we often just shampooed our hair in the kitchen sink, so I'm an expert.

Our school is doing all sorts of interesting things in order to "improve instruction," including grouping us into groups called "Critical Friends Groups," or CFGs. We meet every two weeks, and while some CFGs hate each other, hate the whole process, and feel like it's a big waste of time, our CFG really likes each other, and most of us feel like it's the only meeting we look forward to. We're not getting much done as far as the protocols and things that we're supposed to be doing, but we do a little, and I just enjoy them. This morning, the scheduled meeting was for the CFGs to meet, and mine met in my hospital room. We were missing one person, but it was a lot of fun to see everyone. They brought me flowers, and we just talked for a while. Some of them had wanted to surprise me, but I'm glad that a couple of them rethought it and gave me a call. Otherwise, I don't know if it would have been a pleasant surprise. This way I could make sure I was awake, had combed my hair, had warned the nurse that eight people were coming to see me, etc. Everyone hugged me, including Sergeant Major Blackburn, which surprised me.

Bogie is very glad to have me home. He is really mad at Brent, apparently having decided that Brent took me away. Unfortunately, he may have gotten the message that sinking his claws into Brent's leg is effective, because he did that, and later, Brent brought me home. Cat logic is sometimes a little faulty.

In niece news, this morning I talked to Celi on the phone, and she told me that she "ate Pops, and spilled juice on couch, and shirt, and pants, and socks." Fortunately, I had already heard from my sister that they had learned not to drink juice on the couch today, so the story made sense. Anne filled in for me that "pops" are Corn Pops.

Hospitals and Shopping

That's my life.
Brent's step-mom, a nurse practitioner, was here helping out, and she insisted that I not spend all my time in bed, but that I keep myself busy, moving around, staying as active as possible. In her world, that means shopping. I bought six pairs of shoes this week. And various other items of clothing, but as usual, I keep gravitating towards the shoes. Plus I did some online shopping, ordering myself some pajamas and other comfy clothes for the next few months of my life. Also, there is a t-shirt that says "Sarcasm: It beats killing people," because that's funny.

In the past week, I've met with my oncologist Tuesday, had an MRI yesterday on my brain (which is "normal," according to medical science), and met with my surgeon today. He surprised me with a "you are scheduled for surgery tomorrow" letter, which means that I will report to the hospital at 1pm tomorrow afternoon, at which point they will knock me out, cut little holes in my side, drain out the fluid, put in a camera to look around, biopsy everything they find, and put in medicine to keep the fluid from coming back a third time. The pressure from the fluid collapsing my lung is really painful, so I'm looking forward to that part. And to the nice long nap. However, he said I'll probably be in the hospital for 5 days to a week, which sucks. The hospital is boring. I'm taking a better book this time, though. Our book club is reading "Nicholas Nickleby," and I'm just not getting into it. It requires more concentration than I can muster. So I think I'll skip book club this month. I don't like Dickens anyway.

And now, I must finish lesson plans. Then I can turn my job over to other people to worry about.