Day 230 – White Hospital Walls; Day One

After a not so restful night, David was beaten here by Wendy and Jim Purnell, who came bearing breakfast and a microwave that we could use in the hospital room.  David arrived soon after, but he has a lot further to go in order to get here than the Purnell’s do.  It is comforting to know that they are so close.

I started treatment with two heparin shots to my stomach and an antibiotic drip followed by a blood thinner in a drip, and also a warfarin pill.  That is all they could do this morning until David got here with more money to put in our account.

It wasn’t too much longer before I had other visitors: the Clarke’s, the Pace’s, Kathy Guo, Eva and Lisa.  The room got pretty crowded, along with the addition of doctors and nurses.  SUN Fang made sure that she said good-bye before she left to go home and assured me that she would be here again tonight.

David had a lot of things to take care of and he hoped he could get some things done for his classes while he was here, but we had so many visitors that it was hard for him to do anything.  We had so much food brought in that this little frig is stuffed full and some of the fruits that didn’t need to be in there just sat outside of it.  Everyone who came brought some food, mostly fruits, but other things like muffins and other dishes, too. 

Dr. Wang came in to check on me today.  He didn’t have to, but he wanted to.  He tried to speak more English than he did the yesterday.  It seems that once people understand that we won’t laugh at their English and we will try to understand them and not laugh at their words, they are more willing to try and speak it in front of us.

Lisa offered to take David to get my computer.  They were not able to restore any of my information.  Sad lesson learned, but what can I do about it now, nothing, so get on with life.  I did have some things on USB drives and I put that on, but I also have to get Microsoft Word and other programs restored or downloaded.

David got home late and he had to try and assuage the kids’ fears about me.  This traveling back and forth for him is going to be really tough.

 

The living part of my hospital room.  The windows don't close very well and there is a lot of noise from the outside.  They are doing construction on a new hospital and it seems to start early and go late at night.  The brown chair on the left is a pull out to sleep on, if you need it.  David tried it.  It was NOT comfortable. 

My bed for the next seven to ten days.  Not very comfortable. 

This is the bathroom.  Dr. Tricia sprayed hot water on the toilet for about five minutes before she allowed me to use it.  The sink looked dirty and so did the floor.  Definitely not US hospital standards.  Also, you can only get hot water from about 3 to 10 or 11 p.m.