Buenos días a todos from the Old Pueblo! It’s 8am in Tucson. Arizona and 88F (31.1C) with and expected high of 93F (33.9C). No rain is expected.
It’s been the best and worst of weeks! The best part is the participation in the Source-A-Thon. I managed to do 170, which is some 26% less than last year. I did manage to source and write biographies for two men from Cornwall who were KIA during WWI so I spent a bit of time on these two heroes. It saddens me to find persons who died in war not even have some semblance of a biography to recognize them.
I did next to nothing on Friday, the first day of the Thon because I had an appointment with a neuro-radiologist. It took me 1.5 hours just to get to his office because it is on the other side of town. The meeting took another 2 hours, so en toto, I wasted about 5 hours just for this appointment when I could have done another 30 sources in that time frame. I actually could have made it to Dubrovnik and back. Now this physician ordered yet another brain scan, a CTA for the end of October because the neurologist had an MRA done in June of this year and the two tests are like comparing apples to oranges.
The rest of the week has not been much better...worse actually. I got a ‘spam’ email from a nurse faculty colleague at the university on Friday evening informing us that a colleague, Barbara, was in ICU in Phoenix with brain swelling and believe she had West Nile virus. On Saturday, the email confirmed that Barbara had West Nile. Her sister had medical power of attorney and Barbara wanted no extraordinary measures, so no respiratory, feeding tube, etc. I would have expected this given that Barbara, teaching faculty, taught hospice/palliative care and we shared ‘foxhole buddy’ stories as my nursing was in hospice. I was on a conference call on Tuesday at 2pm when the group email reported that Barbara had died (peacefully) Monday afternoon. Barbara and I retired together. We meet a lot of faculty; however, we generally bond with a few. For me, Barbara was one of the few. In addition, when she hugged, you knew it was a ‘for real’ hug. I also want to warn all of you living in the States that have had a lot of rain to avoid sundown when mosquitos are at their worst. Only Alaska and Hawaii do not harbor the mosquito that causes West Nile. You might also want to burn citronella candles to keep these buggers away from home and kin.
Next, I had a 2-hour appointment with the GI specialist on Monday afternoon. He had a Middle Eastern name and I figured some old geezer who liked working in poop would walk through the door. Well...the upside is that he was maybe in his 30’s and totally HOT! Woof! Moreover, he was accompanied by his ‘scribe’ and his nurse practitioner. I love being surrounded by men, but not talk about poop. So now I have to do all the ‘usual’ crappy tests (pardon the pun).
Next, on Tuesday morning I had a follow-up appointment with the pain specialist who had ordered the MRI of the right hip before I left for New York City. Naturally, it is a torn right hamstring that is ‘old’, which means that it occurred about four or so years ago when I tripped and fell in my kid sister’s basement and ended up having surgery for right rotator cuff damage. I think I might still sue my sister so that I can use the money to take a trip to Africa next year. I have not told her yet. Then, of course, I was on my conference call Tuesday afternoon when I heard about the death of my colleague, Barbara.
Next, Wednesday morning I had to go to ‘Vampire-landia’ to have about three tubes of blood drawn. I did not even get a ‘smiley face’ band-aid. I was on a nurse sleep-researcher conference call from 2-3pm and got a call from my daughter. I had to call her back after the conference call only for her to tell me my eldest grandson was taken to MCG in Georgia for a bowel blockage! It’s that hospital near where all the golfers go to get a ‘green’ jacket. Seth is 20 years old, but he is the grandson who was born at 26 weeks, weighted 1# 11oz, is blind and very hard of hearing. He is enrolled in the Georgia Academy for the Blind. Jennifer (the 8th grade school marm) was on the phone with her ex-husband throughout the night. She called me Thursday afternoon to tell me the surgery was successful, the docs have no idea what caused the blockage and Seth will be with his paternal grandmum for a week before returning to school. Seth is a scrawny little guy and it killed me to hear how they had to do about 2 to 3 needle sticks before they could get a decent vein while Seth cried silently. One cannot even explain to him what is going on because he is that delayed.
Next, since UPS does not ship Fed Ex packages, I had to take my ‘Hot Doctor’ sample to Walgreen’s for shipping yesterday morning. While there, I was able to get my Moderna booster because of my immune system history. The pharmacist who gave me the vaccine told me to expect ‘symptoms’ because he got his booster about a month ago and he was sick for about 2 days. He has leukemia. About 6pm last night, fever, chills, severe bone and muscle pain set in. I took an ibuprofen and laid on the Murphy bed in my office where I am writing this Epistle to St WikiTree now. I got Netflix about 3 weeks ago and the Geek Squad came about 1 week ago to install the modem, router, hooked up the telly, computers, etc. So I started watching a Netflix show that my daughter was raving about called ‘Outlander’. The segment I saw last night while lying in my fevered state was the one in which the hot guy in a kilt was being unmercifully tortured by some really nasty Red Coat. All I could think of was, “Hell, you think you have it bad? Have the pain I’m in and the week I just went through and get back to me.”
Have a great weekend. Pip, thanks for wrangling the chat. Looking forward to your Tucson visit. Everyone, watch out for those Culex mosquitoes that love to bathe in the evening and transmit West Nile Virus. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485754/