That’s a great picture, I thought. 

Thank you all for your love and prayers during the past week. It’s meant the world to me.

…..as that’d doubtless cost me a significant number of my readers and who shall blame them?….here’s a post on the lighter side.

So I’m driving down Vickery this morning to Bryant Irvin and pass by an animal hospital. The vet’s sign reads: “Pet pictures with Santa!”

Pet pictures with Santa? Do people actually get Tiger or Fifi all gussied up so as to have their photo taken with Santa Claus?

This is such a strange world.

They began steroid treatment today in the faint hope it’ll shrink the inflammation (assuming there is such) and leave behind a treatable malignancy. According to the doctor, Saturday afternoon should tell the tale.

On the plus side, barring a cardiac arrest or something, surely the next two days will be No Bad News days? Surely?

Yesterday I asked the doctor how he’d categorize Don’s condition and was swiftly told “Critical. He’s on life support.”

Oh. Sorry I asked.

Later that evening the night nurse (a man from India I like very much) told me he thought Don was a bit better, giving the reasons for this belief. Don was having a restful night (no alarms going off in three hours!) so I went on home about 11 p.m. This morning the doctor said his recent x-rays, while showing no improvement, also didn’t show any worsening, and this was a positive sign, we agreed. He wasn’t happy with the ventilator tube so called for the bronch team (the same machine, etc. from Sunday) so he could send a camera down to see why it wouldn’t stay in place. I was cordially invited to make myself scarce for a bit, and went downstairs for a coffee and cinnamon-pecan muffin (those are wicked good muffins!).

After an hour I went back upstairs to be told they’d figured out what was wrong and had switched the tubes, and give ‘em fifteen more minutes.

Fifteen minutes later I returned to Don’s room, where the equipment was gone and the doctor took me aside, saying he had good news, bad news, and “news” news. The good news was he was able to suction quite a bit of gunk out of Don’s right lung, the “news” news was about the ventilator tube, and the bad news…..the pathologist had just called. He’d found cancer.

Neither he nor I had expected that, and for a moment we stood and stared at each other. “The situation is definitely worse than it was ten minutes ago,” he observed in a truly masterful display of understatement.

First things first, however, and the cancer’s a moot point unless the pneumonia’s eliminated, both because, well, he was in trouble just from the pneumonia, plus they can’t discern the scope of the cancer until the pneumonia’s gone from the x-rays, etc. Right now it’s impossible to decipher the x-ray and try to distinguish this from that.

Prayers would be appreciated as we try to navigate these rough waters in which we’ve suddenly been pitched.

Don finally had the bronchialscopy (sp?) this afternoon which “went well”, at least from the medical staff’s POV.

Based upon the unhappy gagging and choking noises coming from the room, I’m not sure Don would characterize it in quite the same way.

He’s on a ventilator and sedated. The lab results aren’t back yet so we don’t know exactly what is the underlying cause of this atypical pneumonia. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll find out so a proper treatment may be begun.

The doctor estimates he’ll be in the hospital one to two weeks, and on the ventilator one or two days. Oh boy. He’s gonna love that. =8^o

About to eat a fast dinner then return to the hospital…

He was admitted into the hospital yesterday afternoon, as the doctor isn’t sure why the antibiotics weren’t working and Don was struggling to breathe. At 12:30 a.m. he called to say he’d been moved – strictly as a precaution! – to a room in the ICU.

This morning he had another x-ray which showed no improvement over yesterday’s x-ray, so he had a CAT scan, and tomorrow morning will have a bronchialscopy which will allow them to send a camera down into his lungs to see precisely what sort of mischief they’re up to, plus take a biopsy and a fluid sample. The hope is that this will permit the precise bug causing the pneumonia to be determined, so an effective treatment may be given.

On the plus side, wearing an oxygen mask and getting 100% oxygen is making him feel a bit better, and his cough has lessened. These are good things. ;^)

Those overachievers at Google Earth have been at it again:  Ancient Rome in 3D

Apparently one may:

• Fly into Rome as it looked in 320 A.D.
• Tour the interior of famous buildings.
• Visit the sites in 3D such as the Roman Forum, Colosseum and the Forum of Julius Caesar.
• Learn about how the Romans lived.

Don’s back from Corpus Christi, where he was participating as a vendor at a trade show. Just what he needed, what with having pneumonia, eh? He survived it, but is still short of breath and easily tired, poor lamb.

Who has read the book by Jean Kerr titled “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”? That comes from her reminiscence about giving detailed instructions to her young sons as she was going upstairs to get ready for a dinner party. She did the best she could to cover all possibilities.

When she came downstairs it was to discover her lovely centerpiece of daisies was now denuded of blooms. Unfortunately she had neglected to say “Do not eat the daisies.” As she wryly pointed out, now she says it.

Well, it didn’t occur to me to ask during the brief interview at Penney whether there was any chance I’d be hauled in to work in the middle of the night.

Turns out, that was a mistake, as the morning after Thanksgiving the store opens at 4 a.m., so I’m scheduled to clock in at 3:45 a.m. =8^o

The only slight positive I can come up with is that traffic will be surely nonexistent when I’m going, and won’t yet have reached gridlock status when I get off at 11:45 a.m.

Look on the bright side, that’s me. ;^p

Don has had a cough for ages, mostly in the mornings.  Over the summer it began to bother him at night as well.  Recently it’s made his life miserable, so he finds it very difficult to sleep.

He went to the doctor last week, who thought it’s still most likely allergies but went ahead and gave him an antibiotic, just in case.  Helped a bit, but that’s all.

This afternoon he returned to the doctor’s office with my stern admonition to “get an X-ray!” ringing in his ears.  He was gone for most of the afternoon, and as time passed my fears increased.  Lung cancer?  Surely I’ve read that’s more of a dry cough, though.  TB?  Hmmm….that’s a possibility, and I’ve read that it’s making something of a comeback.

He finally got home, bearing a sack full of medicines…..pneumonia.  He’s got pneumonia, and apparently has had it for a while now.

As he cheerfully put it, “That’s okay!  I’ve had that before” (back when he was in sixth grade, IIRC).

Thank God it’s nothing worse.