Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 4:22 AM
Subject: T+25, early morning

I started each day in the hospital by looking in the mirror and saying to 
myself "I'm not dead yet."  This seemed a little morbid, but it also seemed 
quite appropriate.  Since coming to the apartment, I've changed this to the 
more positive "It's alive!!!"  For 5 points each, what movies are each of 
these quotes from, who specifically said them, and describe the scenes.  Come 
on out there, not the usual few responses, these are easy ones.

My health continues to be as good as can be expected.  My white cells and 
platelet counts are, respectively, above or near the top end of the normal 
range.  The platelets in particular are likely higher than at any point in my 
life.  I joked with the medical staff that I could probably cut myself and 
wouldn't bleed, but they didn't think it was a very good thing to try.  A 
nurse today said that my counts were higher than hers.  My red cells are 
still below normal, but have risen since the transplant days.  The docs say 
that the red cells should come back by days T+60 to T+90, or in about 1 to 2 
months.  I am hoping that my recovery will beat these times, because the 
anemia makes me tire easily, and keeps me from walking and typing, 2 of my 
favorite activities in the hospital.  While my red counts are higher than in 
the hospital, it seems just harder to do even the same things in this 
environment as it was in the hospital.  I am basically where I was all summer 
before I went in to the hospital, which isn't bad and I can live with it.  

I need to explain my blackout on the internet for the first 3 days in the 
apartments.  A completely rookie mistake.  I plugged in to the phone system 
in the first apartment we were in (we are now in a different one) and the 
computer could not make the connection.  The phone jack was fluky, and the 
phone would die if the line jiggled during a call.  I thought that maybe this 
was the problem, or that that maybe this building had digital phone lines.  I 
even had people checking out where to purchase the converters for attaching 
an analog (regular) modem to a digital line.  I was talking to my local 
electronics guru and was explaining the situation when I had the gotcha 
moment.  I had to dial a '9' to get calls out of the hospital.  You should be 
able to figure what I had not done that was causing the problem.  

I have visited the clinic each day since being in the apartment.  This is at 
a building across the street from the hospital, about 6 blocks from here.  
This is actually where the docs and their staff work.  The clinic visits 
allow my blood to be drawn for tests, to receive any necessary IV fluid meds, 
and examination by the docs and staff, just like in the hospital.  I have 
gone there every day this week since Tuesday, and have spent from 1.5 to 
maybe 5 hours there.  On the first day they pulled one of my chest tubes out, 
and I do mean literally pulled it out.  I asked the nurse practitioner who 
had previously done a bone marrow biopsy on me, a much more complex 
procedure, when they would take one tube out.  This would keep life simpler 
for me, as it reduces the time I need to spend on tube care, and reduces the 
chance of infection through the tubes, and reduces the chance that I would 
inadvertently snag a tube and pull it out myself (ouch) which does happen.  
We went into a small room, and he cut a single suture in my chest at the 
penetration site, told me to take a deep breath, let it out, take a second 
deep breath and he pulled the tube out.  Now this tube goes in my chest, 
under my skin to my neck, into the jugular vein and then down the veins to 
the larger vein near my heart.  I could feel the tube moving in my neck when 
he did this, but, amazingly, absolutely no pain, nothing.  He put direct 
pressure on the tube site in my chest for a while, put on a bandage, and that 
was that.  I kept the tube, and about a foot of it was inside of me.  Amazing 
stuff.  Wonder how they figured out they could do that.  Starting this 
morning, Monday, I go to the clinic only 3 days per week, MWF.

Speaking of tubes.  I had a little problem in the hospital with one of them.  
When they came in to take blood, they often couldn't draw anything out.  They 
would often use another of the 4 lines to take the sample.  When they put 
stuff in, they could use a relatively large amount of pressure to push it 
through.  When they draw out, the pressure is only my blood pressure, which 
is really very little absolute pressure.  I appears that they left the tube 
in with the relatively clogged line.  This, I thought, could be a real 
problem for me, since putting in a new catheter would mean more surgery.  
Anyway, the nurse explained that sometimes the tubes get clogged with fibers, 
probably the bodies attempt to fix the leak, and they had a special potion to 
break up these fibers.  It would take from 30 minutes to 2 hours to work.  I 
sat there for 30 minutes, and they still couldn't pull blood out.  He told me 
to go out and do something and come back at the two hour mark.  I went to the 
Kaiser pharmacy to pick up some stuff, my mother ate at the hospital 
cafeteria, we visited Dario, and came back.  The blood flowed easily and the 
problem is fixed.

I missed an opportunity to play a good trick on the staff when they did their 
physical exam yesterday.  While waiting for the fiber potion to do its trick, 
a nurse came by with a big bag of Dum Dums, a tootsie roll pup with no 
tootsie roll center.  I first looked at this offer skeptically, as the labels 
stated prominently that they used artificial colors and flavors, things I 
have avoided for 30 years.  It took me about a second to realize that, after 
all those 30 years, look where I was spending the weekday morning.  What the 
hell, and the nurse suggested the blueberry, but I also took several other 
flavors for the road.  The whole sucker dissolved in my mouth before I left, 
and I went to the bathroom where I looked in my mouth, a real common activity 
around here, only to see that my tongue was bright, bright blue.  I went up 
to the doc who had examined me earlier and stuck my tongue out at him.  He 
hardly reacted, and said that he had seen worse.  He knew what it was, and I 
was disappointed.  I then pulled the same thing on the nurse practitioner, 
and he jumped back, real surprised.  If only I had saved it for the actual 
physical exam.

During the physical exam a few days ago, I told the doc that I was real tired 
and took a 3 hour nap as soon as I got back to the apartment.  He said that 
it was about time that I was showing some less than positive effect from the 
transplant.  I personally think that this is not strictly the case, but that 
my anemia, lack of sleep for the last month and really weird diet had finally 
caught up with me.  I have this sneaking suspicion that the docs and the 
other staff may have a betting pool on when something like that happens to 
me.  Maybe I could get in on it and come up with the right symptoms on the 
right date and win the pool.  If they don't have one going, maybe I should 
suggest it to them.