7:05 p.m. - Mar. 10, 2002
Saturday
Today was a good day, it really was. Last night I stayed up til almost 2am, writing, thinking, fretting. I just couldn�t sleep; I couldn�t turn off my brain. Kinda how I feel again tonight, although I am completely exhausted. It�s an odd feeling, to be completely exhausted, but still unable to sleep. Anyways, when I finally did drift off to sleep last night, I remember thinking how glorious it was going to be, to wake up at my leisure, and not have to do a damn thing today.
This morning, the phone rang at about 9:30am. It was Clint. He always calls me early on Saturdays, and always wakes me up, and always sounds surprised that I am still in bed. (Honey, it is my ONE DAY to do whatever the fuck I want)�and I LOVE to sleep.
Matt had driven in, to spend the weekend here with Clint, and to visit Philly in the hospital. We were all going to go together, but our schedules didn�t mesh. They decided, because the weather was so gorgeous or whatever, that they were going to run around and do something productive for awhile � and plan on going to the hospital around 3 or 4. Well, I hadn�t seen Philly yet and I didn�t want to wait that long. It actually worked out better this way, because I got to spend some time alone with Philly.
I rolled out of bed around 10:30 this morning, brushed my teeth, threw on some clothes, and went to Kaldi for breakfast - my favorite little breakfast place. There is no better place to be on a beautiful Saturday morning than sitting out on the patio at Kaldi, my little �Paradise Alley.� I got some food to go for Philly and ran up to the hospital. I spent several hours there, alone, with him. We had a great visit and I feel so much better now. I needed to see him with my own eyes. I needed to hear his words and look into his eyes.
I have to admit it � Before I saw him, I was completely freaking out. I cried most of the way home, on the plane, last night. Three plus hour flight, and I just drank and cried like some crazy person. But, now that I�ve seen him and talked with him, I feel MUCH better. He�s doing really well.
Philly has gained four pounds in three days and he has an incredible appetite. While I was there, they must�ve taken four quarts of blood from him and pumped four gallons of liquids into him. The nurses were great, really sweet and attentive. I was present when the doctor came to check on Philly. I learned that Philly�s �normal� doctor felt that Philly had the PCP Pneumonia (a rare Pneumonia that kills so many people with HIV), although Philly�s symptoms didn�t correlate. So, this second doctor was called in, to consult and give his opinion. Dr. Stool was terrific, he really listened to Philly and he was really thorough. He didn�t want to make any assumptions and treat Philly for PCP, without first running all of the tests that they could, to obtain a definitive answer. I also saw Philly�s chest x-ray. It looked like a snowstorm, as the doctor put it. I have to agree � it didn�t look good, lots of cloudy masses. The plan of action is for Philly to have a CT scan tomorrow, using the dyes, so they can get a really good picture. On Monday, they�re going to do a Bronchioscopy, to get a good look at his Bronchials, etc. With these two tests, they should be able to determine what is really going on with Philly � to see what type of Pneumonia he has and how severe. In the meantime, they�re concerned because he�s been running a fever. His fever starts around 4am, gets up to around 103, and lasts til noontime. He didn�t cough the whole time I was there, but he did have some shortness of breath. They were going to probably give him oxygen tonight and they were definitely going to set him up with a shunt in his chest, which would give him a nice, high caloric intake, instead of just sugar water.
Philly�s in great spirits and he has some great color. Sasha had dropped off lots of things to keep Philly comfortable � pictures, books, CDs, laptop, DVD movies, cell phone, bath products, etc. so Philly was being well taken care of.
After a few hours with him, a nurse came and wheeled him off for another procedure. I decided that I really wanted to spend time with my family. I went with my mom, Nico, Christopher, Matt and Nikki to run a lot of errands. It was a nice diversion, shopping with children. I bought a new fit ball (watch out!), some new summer tops, a CD (Incubus), and my mother bought me some new makeup (care of two $200 gift certificates that her boss gave her). We went to my sister�s for awhile and Karl made us all hamburgers. I got to hold Noah and look into those angelic eyes again. What wonderful therapy. Noah is the skinniest, longest little baby my sister�s had. He�s very spider-like, with those long legs and long arms of his, but adorable just the same. He looks like he is going to have my sister�s build, tall and thin.
So, wow - I kept busy all day, which was really good for me. In fact, I just finally walked in the door. Been running around for some twelve hours. It�s good to be home again. Adam had called twice and left two very sweet voicemails, sending me his love and his support. I miss him. I just called the house but he�s performing tonight. I had almost forgotten. Damn, I am really disappointed that I didn�t get to go see him play tonight. Fucking bummer. But, this time that we are apart will be good. He�s got some things to sort out and some old shadows to put to rest. Next weekend is his weekend without the girls � so we�ll have some time to be alone, just the two of us. I�m really looking forward to it. I�m going to give him the space and the time that he needs to find his way. I�m sending out my love.
