Mouse guy and more

Another interesting day here at Stanford Medical. Got a good night sleep, 6 hours, with the help of Ambien. Did the usual routine. The docs came and Paula said That was inspirational singing, I was moved, then Randy said Dog, you got some pipes, that was transcendent. I tingled awaiting Simon, and he said John, have you always known you were meant for Hollywood? Cause that’s where you’re going!

Then I realized it was Dr. Banerjee saying All your counts are up, and Dr. Majeti saying We can give you some extra WBCs, and Dr. Coutre saying You may go home as early as Tuesday! All is good. So I continue to target Wednesday, always have a cushion. And let me say right here thank you to all of you for your love and support and prayers and hopes and incantations and blessings and talks and emails and calls and letters and cards and comments and acts of generosity and general uplifting hope and compassion. This has helped me and my family immensely in staying positive, and limiting any moments of darkness to the fleeting glimpses they are worth.

Somehow they didn’t get my menu yesterday so I had to suffer through bacon and eggs and blueberry muffin, with only oatmeal saved up for 9sies. Toughed it out though and managed to make it to lunch, where they still didn’t have my menu. This time Esther the nurse took note and said They don’t have your menu, do you need more? So we sent down for another tray, supplementing the pasta, meat sauce and green beans, pears, and dinner roll, with a bowl of soup, bag of chips and some milk. And we took the opportunity to order a massive dinner too. Check out the pic of what I ordered for Monday. In spite of this I weigh 170, about what I weighed when I got here. I’ve only gained 2 pounds on this new Atkins Diet Chemo!

Menu


Friday night’s dinner

Top Secret Mouse Guy
After lunch I did the yoga, light weights, walked. This time I brought the video camera with me on a whim, I am going to have to get the vid clip on the web when I get to my broadband connection because it is slightly bizarre. I went into my usual basement super tunnel walk, which at ends in the bowels of some building where students do animal testing. I have only once seen a human down there, but this time as I come around the corner I about bump into a guy with a caged mouse. I say Hey, how are you, what do you have there? And I am videotaping, wearing a HEPA mask. The guy starts doing some kind of twisting dance to hide the mouse from me, and says Hey, who are you, what are doing with that Video down here, there have been suspicious people down here. I tell him my story, I’m just walking and taping for posterity. He chills a little, shows me the mouse, and we go our ways. Funny reaction though, like that was some top secret mouse. I probably have Smallpox now.

Life is Passionate
On the third floor a group of about six people were crowded around a woman wrapped in blankets laying on a couch in a lobby visiting area. They each had a hand on her and a hand in the air and were praying vehemently and passionately for her, and she was in tears. I wanted to go help them, but this was too intimate and I didn’t know the language so I moved on.

I forgot to mention, yesterday morning I was visited by two more members from the Spiritual Center. Swoosh goes the outer door, sploosh the alcohol washer, swoosh the inner door. I looked at them and said Did you wash your hands? They said Of course we did! I told them I had so much spiritual help coming in from family and friends I felt I was being greedy with God, was that possible? They didn’t think so. One of them lived in East Greenwich RI when his Dad was a Navy guy, small world. We spent about ten minutes talking about how they could help get the Library Laptop idea going, kick it up the ladder at the Spiritual Center, and they said they would. I copied them on an email back to the Patient Relations person, so now they are all pinned slightly.

Hair today …..
My son Mike is very interested in me losing my hair soon, so I thought I would give it a test tug today. Oops. As we all know I had a couple of bad hair decades recently, and it is not going to get better. Let’s just say those backyard haircuts I used to give myself, I won’t be saving that $15/month for a while. I may save a boatload on waxing my back, although the body hair seems a whole lot firmer than the head. I tested the sides where it is pretty solid, giving it a very slight pull, and ended up with about fifteen hairs. Hmmmm. Fine, who cares, better me than any of you. I already own some damn fine hats with wide brims. I think I will have a nut and bolt tattoo design done on the really big moles, that will be lovely.
Here is a picture of the original Smokey the Bear, who resides in the first floor lobby of Children’s Hospital. He came here with cancer of the lymph nodes in the twenties, I think, and he is going strong, although pencil-necked. All that smoking!




And this is where they used to keep people like me, until the Reagan administration had us all released to the streets.


But I feel much better now!