1:08 p.m. - Mar. 11, 2002
Tests and more tests
My honey is flying out here on Wednesday morning. I am so looking forward to having him here, even if it�s only for quick visit (he leaves Thursday night). I�ve decided to take Thursday as a vacation day (yeehaw!), so we will have some time together. Wish I could take more time off, but work is just nuts. The good thing is that Monisa left for New York today, and she�ll be gone all week. She was in a really good mood today, which was just WEIRD, especially just before a big-ass event. Hmm, maybe she got laid. Or, maybe she got a new microchip implanted in her chest cavity. Whatever � I�ll take it.
Work was crazy nonstop. No one took a lunch. If it wasn�t for Mark, I wouldn�t have stopped to eat (he ran down to Treebeards and picked up lunch for all of us). I got a lot done today and felt good about all of the progress I made � keeping busy (even CRAZY BUSY) was probably really good for me. I woke up in a fog and felt like I was at the breaking point. It wasn�t really until the rainbow omen that my day turned from UGH to AHH � well, that and hearing for sure that Adam was coming. I�m sure it would seem silly to most people, but I take the rainbow as a seriously good omen. I mean � how in the hell is it that so many of us all happened to walk outside at the same time and all look up at the same time to all notice the same beautiful rainbow? Complete rainbows are rare, as is � but for all of us to see it � well, that just blows my mind.
I was also wearing my lucky Monkey necklace today. I think I�ll just wear it every damn day now. Not gonna take it off until Philly is all-better.
Speaking of Philly � I went to visit him tonight, directly after work. Candace was there � she had driven in from Rockport. Philly�s Endioscopy was delayed by some three hours today, while the doctor was dealing with another patient�s cardio pulmonary emergency. Philly couldn�t have solid foods before the procedure, so this delay really pissed him off (he�s a real grump when he doesn�t eat). We all took it as a good sign that he was pissed off. As Adam said, �Shows he�s got some fire in his veins.�
When I arrived, shortly after 6pm, he had just returned to his room and had just finished off some more liquid food. He was groggy and grumpy and hungry. Candace looked worried. She tried to busy herself by making phone calls and coordinating some plans with Sasha. She brought some photos of her children and a picture that Caroline had drawn for Philly, which I thought was really sweet. She�s gonna stay at Philly�s place this week and help Sasha with some legal issues / paperwork / errands, etc. Since she had just driven in, she was tired and so she didn�t stay very long. Philly ex boyfriend, Brennan also visited. Philly wasn�t too thrilled to see him (as he later admitted to me), because, as he put it � he only wanted to see his core group of friends, not everybody in the freaking world. Ok, so I asked him if he wanted to see Adam � and, it really said a lot that Philly really did want Adam to come, that he really bonded with Adam and that he was really looking forward to seeing him again. Wow.
They decided that they were going to put in his CVC (mainline, into his chest) to give him a high calorie diet (on top of all of his normal food) to really put some bulk on him. I really thought that they would�ve done this by now, because they were talking about it on Saturday. Anyway, they decided to do it tonight. When they came in to prep him, Brennan decided it was time to leave. I stayed behind as they scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed Philly�s skin raw. I joked that they were going to remove a layer of his skin � which is exactly what they were doing, they told me. Eek. After the scrubbing, they called the doctor only to discover that he was delayed again. Which meant they were going to have to come back and scrub, scrub scrub again. Damn, his skin was already so red.
I have never been one for idle chit-chat small-talk, but tonight I learned that it is sometimes just as important as talking about REAL stuff. I learned to chit-chat tonight, to keep Philly�s mind off the fact that they were preparing to shove a splint in his chest, only after removing a couple of layers of his already sensitive and red skin.
Around 8pm, we were still waiting for the doctor to come. Philly decided that he was REALLY hungry for solid foods, so I went to Niko Niko�s and got us both some dinner. We had a little picnic on his bed. Of course, as soon as we began to eat, the doctor showed up. Dr. Stool is so freakin wonderful. He came in, looked at the food, engaged us in some smalltalk, and said that he would come back in a few minutes, to give us time to finish our dinner. Visiting hours were until 9pm, so I had to leave before he got his CVC. When I left, he had just begun to run a fever. I hated to leave, but he looked like he really needed some rest. He admitted that he was going to sleep really well tonight, after having such a long and stressful day.
So � we have to wait one more day for the test results. I did find out that Philly�s going in for yet another chest x-ray tomorrow. Dr. Quesada feels that, from the preliminary test results (from the CT scan), that we are dealing with PCP Pneumonia. But, we�ll cross that bridge when / if we come to it. Until then, I�ve got my lucky monkey.
