Al's Blog-o-Sphere

I should have paid more attention in math class, or at least programming class, and started at 0. It’s day 7, but actually tomorrow would be the one week anniversary.

Progress continues. I showed up at the room today and found it empty. Al’s things were still there, though, so I wasn’t too concerned, I just sat down and waited. He came back after a while, pushing his IV pole and with a couple nursing students helping him.

I had forgotten that there was a “Discharge” class this morning at 10:00 am. I was invited, but I didn’t get the impression it was aimed at me, just Al. Anyway, I had forgotten about it. I could have gone, I was here early enough, I just was in the cafeteria having breakfast. Continue Reading…

A couple of you have asked where things could be sent. He should be in this room for a while, so here’s the scoop:

UPMC Presbyterian
Room D952
500 Lothrop St.
Pittsburgh PA 15213-2582

[Al will probably be getting out of the hospital early next week, so unless you’re willing to pay for express delivery, it might be better to wait to send anything now. ]

Or, try a UPMC E-Card, it’ll take his mind off the noises on the floor.

I can’t believe it’s been 6 days already. It seems like 2 or 3.

I just visited Al. I went straight to his room on arrival at the hospital today, about 9:00am-ish. He was trying to sleep, but talked to me for a bit. He would have been wakened soon anyway, because someone from the transplant department came in to review the medications he will be taking.

She separated each drug into two pill cups. One for those he will probably be taking the rest of his life and the other for those he will eventually stop taking. They were an impressive pile of pills, but Al has been taking so many pills all his life, he wasn’t flustered a bit. He knew what almost all of them were.

He didn’t know one of them. Protonix. But I knew that one. It’s a proton pump inhibitor and I took it for some time for GERD. It’s hard to stump Al, so I enjoyed that little victory.

He complained about a sore back and said he had been kept awake all night because of muscle spasms. They told him that was pretty normal at this point, but he wanted to sleep some more, so I left him to sleep as long as he could. Continue Reading…

I never got around to posting yesterday. I was here in the morning, but decided to wait until later to write anything so I’d have the latest info. But by the time I visited in the evening I didn’t have my laptop with me. I’ll get to why later.

So, I’m double posting here, covering both yesterday and today. That’s all right, because there isn’t really any big news, just steady, incremental improvement. Continue Reading…