March 9, 2022

At this point, I’m not sure I was really thinking. Really feeling. Anything. I was just breathing, getting through one minute at a time. If you had told me it would all be over in 36 hours? I don’t know if I would have laughed, cried, or just stared at you and blinked a few times.

I walk these streets where my soleless feet
Haunt the ground where it was I once tread
On Grafton’s Arcade pours the rich commerce rain
Though the voices I no longer hear speak

Today’s nurse (Blanca?) was running around super, crazy busy this morning, I think she has three patients and one coded. Someone on the floor did, anyway. But not Tim! He’s just sedated and quiet. And swollen. I gave permission to start dialysis (technically my former OK was only good at Select). They might do it very slowly over 24 hours, though, rather than a 4-hour power session, so that it doesn’t affect his blood pressure as much.

Heaven’s to blame, so on that I’ll abstain
Best clean the church from my cracked fingernail
But don’t let me die still wondering
What it was I left behind

After a couple of hours, though, my favorite! I love it when they wave me over to include me in rounds – I get to hear everything right then and ask any questions. Unfortunately the talk was mostly more of the same – high pulse, low blood pressure, high white blood cell count… Basically almost every number is either higher or lower than they want. The opposite of what it needs to be.

From God’s golden plate, begrudgers they eat
Until their bellies burst, ignorance bliss
Never they roam, a wanderless home
Is as far as their sorry eye sees

So they’re going to talk with ID again, and collect more samples for cultures – these samples specifically to check for fungal infections, since that’s about the only thing they haven’t looked at. They’re also going to start him on an antifungal now, just in case, and consult with ID on if they can/want to prescribe a stronger one that I guess only they can OK. I’ve started to read up on the fungal infection but it’s a lot, and I’m having a day, and I want to get some HaldeCraft orders out today, so I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

Give me a rusty old coat, well-trampled and soaked
Until these ashes and blood mingle deep
But don’t let me die still wondering
What it was I left behind

They’re also going to to another CT, but there was discussion on full body vs. cranial/sinus and a GI focused. Maybe both? It sounds like they want to talk to ID before that decision so that team can weigh in.

I think that’s everything, so….

Though I’ve been that face before, slammed every open door
Squandered once scattered beliefs
So when the waves come crashing in, I’ll swim as the ocean swims
Out with the morning tide and back for my tea

In other news… did Gary Numan write my day today? Because I feel I’ve spent the whole day with my head IN CARS (dum DA dum) IN CARS (dum DA dum) (I’m betting I just lost most of you). I remembered from yesterday not to get into the right hand lane when I turned off University onto 13th because in about two blocks, the right lane is blocked off for about another two blocks, for some … I dunno, construction shenanigans. I guess most everyone else knew that, too, because the left lane was BACKED UP, yo. Like, ridiculously. But after a bunch of us were able to move back into the right hand lane???? Traffic didn’t get any better. In fact, three or four cars ahead of me, I saw people getting back over into the left-hand lane. Turns out there was a three-car accident on the corner of 13th and Museum Road… but I got over just in time and then got back over in the three feet or so that was left before I had to turn right to get to Shands. Where valet parking was even more backed up. I wasn’t in a hurry, though, and by the time I thought “maybe this isn’t worth it” I was too committed to the lane to do anything else that wouldn’t involve driving to Butler Plaza and turning around (practically. I may be exaggerating by a block or two). So, with Valet, there’s one lane to get into the whole loop. Immediately after the turn, about one car length into the loop, it opens up into two lanes and it’s two lanes for maybe five or six car lengths. Then one lane goes under the building (valet) and one loops to the left. After that loop, there’s juuuuuuust enough space to eek out a second valet parking lane if you’re not a chicken. A lot of times on busy mornings, I’ll see Valet sort of… semi park cars in that fake second lane, in order to get people out of their cars faster. They have two people taking info for cars, and another handful of runners/drivers who take the cars. So they’ll park the cars there and sort of work back and forth on the two lanes until they get traffic moving. Well, one of the cars near the very front of the line? Either the person who was valet parking, her appointment got cancelled, or she was there on the wrong day, or she had an emergency somewhere else and had to leave… but either way, she needed her car back before it had been parked. So everyone had to wait (and roll backwards a bit) while they backed about seven cars out, went ahead and parked those cars in the valet lot, came back, got hers, and THEN the rest of us who were sitting there were able to unload.

So I’ll do as I please like the well-tempered breeze
Blowing which way I see fit
I’ll gray with the clay, seven days ’till the day
When they throw me on the potter’s scrap heap

This whole time, of course, I’m worrying about my speedometer — why did it stop working? is it really an easy fix? nothing for me these days is easy! what if this is the start of the death of my car? I can’t afford a new car. I can’t even afford a USED car. Please don’t let anything happen to my car. How will I be able to come into town and take care of Tim? Anyway…. I finally got up to Tim’s room, hung out there for a few hours, talked to doctors, and then went to what I THOUGHT was Autozone but was really an Advanced Auto Parts (I dunno, it’s the one Tim always has me take him to when Truckenstein needs repairs, so that’s the one I went to because I know where it is. But apparently not what it’s called). They knew of the part I needed, but didn’t have it. They have it at the AAP across town, go there and give them this piece of paper. I drive over there (and it’s so weird to keep looking at my speedometer because I know I’m going through a couple of speed trap areas and OH SHIT IT’S ZERO… every time. I did download a speedometer app, but it’s where I usually look at my phone when I hang it over the radio, for map usage. Just not used to looking there, is all.). I buy the part. It doesn’t look anything like the part I had seen online. It was also much more $$$. I sit in the parking lot and start crying as I’m watching video after video of Vehicle Speed Sensor replacements and all of them look very hard and none of them look like the part I have. As I said to the friends I was texting, “I watched another one that was like, so, first you put your car up on your lift and I’m like IF I OWNED MY OWN LIFT I WOULDN’T NEED A GD VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO FIX THIS! Alsjdjfhfhskakdjfnd” — thank you, Val and Lala, for talking me off the cliff and finding me a mechanic to call. I’ll call him as soon as I’m done writing this post. If it’s the right part, he can use it. If it’s not the right part, I’ll return it. That’s what adults do, right???

But take my advice, you’ll have to bury me twice
‘Cause the first time I won’t rest easily
But don’t let me die still wondering
What it was I left behind

I am giving this day Two Stars. I’d give it one star, but Tim is holding steady, so he gets a star for that. But mostly, today, I’m going to call the mechanic my friends found and then I’m going to go get some HaldeCraft orders boxed up and USPS pickup scheduled and then it’s whiskey and ice cream o’clock.

So don’t let me die still wondering
What it was I left behind
I want a race well-run, ahead of the gun
With a dance before the far finish line

xoxo ya’ll, have a picture of some traffic. You can’t really tell from the picture but that red truck is full-on pulled into the outgoing lane, so people trying to leave were stuck and couldn’t exit the loop. That really helped things along nicely. Not.

If I had known that tomorrow was the last day, I probably would have put the speedometer issue off, just not even worried about it. But. We are who we are.

So now life-long regrets, only well-fettered steps
Until these shoes I can no longer shine
But don’t let me die still wandering
For the love I left behind

Lyrics by Dave King
Don’t Let me Die Still Wondering