Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Well, we went walking around this part of Pittsburgh again today.

We went for lunch to Lulu’s Noodles, a Thai noodle place that Al had been to before. It was pretty good, a lot like Chineese food, at least what I had, a Teryaki Chicken dish. Al had some Beef and Noodle concotion that looked really good. He couldn’t finish it all, so will enjoy it twice, later.

After that, we walked down Forbes Avenue, a bit different route than we had taken before, and made what seems to be becoming a daily trip to the Rite Aid. Al needed to pick up a replacement prescription – they had given him insulin syringes for his nebulizer medicine. They were way too small to work. So he got the right ones today. I can’t believe the quantity of things he’s got from the drug store recently. If they had given it to him all at once, it would have been too much to carry.

We went over to the hospital and went up to the Presbyterian cafeteria. We had already eaten, but I just wanted to sit down and use the computer for a while. Thanks to wi-fi, I’m posting this.

We’re getting bored. There isn’t much to do right yet. We haven’t wanted to drive the car because parking is so difficult to get at Family House. It’s been good exercise for both of us, though. Al’s stamina is getting better and it won’t be long before I’ll be having trouble keeping up with him.

We have nothing scheduled for the weekend, medical-wise. His next visit to the hospital for anything is Tuesday. So we’re free have nothing to do. Later, as he’s up to more extended travel, we’ll branch out and have more to do.

We are considering the Carnegie Museums. We walked past them today. There is a museum of Art as well as one for Natural History. They might make a good way to occupy a day sometime soon.

Once, we leave here, we’ll head back to the Family House and probably end up watching TV. That’s about all there is to do there.

Well, we’re still here in Pittsburgh. But no internet access again at the Family House and this time even the guest computer is broken and not working.

I arrived late yesterday. At least late compared to when I wanted to get here. We had just enough time to get done what we needed to do and check in to the Family House on Neville St.

I drove Al’s car down here. It wasn’t doing it any good sitting idle in my driveway for so long and the other vehicles were needed back at home. I cleaned out the car, got the slow leak fixed in the tire and thought I was all set to go. But I got on the Thruway and started hearing a noise. At first it was a tick-tick-tick noise and I thought maybe it was low on oil and I was hearing lifter noise. I hadn’t heard anything on short drives around town. Continue Reading…

I went for my first bronchoscopy this morning. Apparently these invasions will be a regular part of my health regime – bimonthly for the first year, tri-monthly during the second year, then as directed, such as when illness occurs. It’s the primary means of collecting information on the status of the donor lungs and is thusly a very necessary evil. The upshot is that the lungs are accessible through existing bodily channels, unlike say, a liver or a kidney; collecting tissue samples for biopsy is quicker and far cleaner.

I only had a cursory knowledge of what a bronchoscopy entails, so I was hesitant. Anything that goes down my windpipe had damned well better be or digestible, that’s my motto. The whole process, barring complication, takes little more than twenty minutes. I was administered a dose of a sedative known as Versed, which is known to induce fugues. Throughout the process, I’m told, I was never comatose, I just have no memory of what happened after they told me the Versed was going in. They could’ve stripped naked and danced to “Love Shack” for fifteen minutes, for all I know. Continue Reading…

And we have mobility! Another pair of those annoying chest tubes were pulled from my sides this morning. The gaps were quickly sutured up and dressed, and the results were immediately noticeable. With the new freedom to expand my ribcage, I felt worlds better.  More significantly, however, this meant that two of the clunky, oblong drainage containers could be cast away. It is infinitely simpler to manage one fluid collection box than three, while also holding onto a cardiometer and an I.V. pole. It also gave me the freedom to wear civilian clothing – a loose shirt – rather than the embarassing and drafty hospital-issue gowns I’d been wearing until now.

Things are slowly improving. My appetite is returning and I cannot wait to indulge in a proper meal. I know there’s nothing wrong with hospital food but it still feels somehow “wrong.”  My days are spent watching whatever non-election coverage I can find on television (none), playing my Gameboy, or engaging in various rehabilitation exercises. They like to take the patients out of their rooms for walks. When you consider that the majority of lung and heart transplants are in the elderly, a long walk could be pretty challenging.  So far, it hasn’t been a challenge at all. Perhaps I’m not asking to go far enough or do enough things. If they’d like to walk me, a trip to the cafeteria for to pick up some snacks would be a great idea. I’ll have to inquire about that. Continue Reading…