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dcnovice -> DC Update: Independence Day (6/28/2015 6:52:02 PM)
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June 28, 2015
Independence Day
Dear Ones ---
Since my rectal cancer diagnosis, on January 31, 2013, I’ve found myself thinking, saying, and doing things I’d never imagined. Today brought another item for the list: lobbying to stay in the hospital. It’s not that I relish renting an apartment I haven’t seen since April, wearing muumuus, worrying about King Kitty, worrying about folks worrying about me, eating tepid green beans, and considering the gift shop an exotic destination. But I do relish coming home whole.
For some days now, all of us here on Reservoir Road—and countless others playing along at home—have been engaged in a pair of sometimes overlapping games: “Telephone” and “Finish the Tail on the Donkey.” This weekend, the two pursuits crisscrossed quite excitingly. As I was enjoying Sabbath sloth, the far more productive nurse-practitioner on Six Main was answering an email from Mom. The news sped north that I was slated for discharge on Tuesday. Yep, the day after tomorrow.
That announcement jolted my kind folks, who’d aimed to lend a hand when I was discharged. Did they need to drop everything and hit I-95 tomorrow? I didn’t think so, but then patients are always the last to know anything in their charts. So I talked to my shift nurse, who talked to the wound team resident, who talked to I’m not sure whom. Meantime, the surgeon (who’d been cc’d on the email) wrote to Mom, agreeing that Tuesday was awfully soon, given that we currently have no idea if I could sit long enough for the car ride back to 16th Street, let alone for a meal, a movie, or a magazine.
Long story short, I’m due to be discharged a week from tomorrow, on Monday, July 6th. Disappointment at being hospitalized on the Fourth two years is a row is hugely tempered by my room’s stunning view of the Washington Monument. So I can bank on seeing the fireworks at least. And I can use the coupons I got in the gift shop’s loyalty program. For reasons surpassing understanding, they’re valid next week but not this one.
There are, of course, myriad details to sort out about my homecoming. Here’s what I know so far. I will continue hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) treatment as an outpatient, Mondays through Fridays. Given that, I’m not slated for rehab. (No facility wants to spend the bulk of a day schlepping a patient to and from treatment elsewhere.) Depending on how fluid the HBO schedule is, I may reactivate my Caring Bridge calendar to solicit rides. I will continue gradually increasing the time I spend sitting. I hope not to need a hospital bed, but that may happen. If so, I’ll seek help disassembling and storing my current four-poster. I will hopefully not have a portable wound vacuum, but there’s no promise on that (or any other) front.
This I know: I definitely will continue to need company (fleshly or virtual, as available) and encouragement, and I’ll remain ever grateful for the outpouring of love that has brought me safe thus far and will, I know, lead me home. Thank you.
Cheers,
DC
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