Trying to Find "Regular" Again

It's Monday and the start of a new week, so I'm hoping that today will feel a bit more normal somehow. After cooking breakfast back at the Ronald McDonald House, I played Foosball and video games with Raul Matthew for a few minutes before dropping him off at the hospital so that I could head up to Kokomo to teach my 2:30 - 3:45 class on Cyberculture and Community.

There were three highlights of the day that lifted my spirit. First, I got a touching card from several of my former students in the ACCEL program at IU Kokomo. Thanks to all of you for the gift cards, and to Marie in particular for organizing this. I was very encouraged by your collective thoughtfulness!! (Thanks also to Kathy, Mike, and the Sears family for the help with the gas money.) Second, I learned that the kids in the Pothoven family in Florida may be making and sending the paper cranes I mentioned in a previous posting. How cool is that?! And, third, I found that our friend, Julie, had tidied up the cats' food and litter box area. Thanks, Julie!! From this point forward, our back bathroom will be known as the Julie May Feline Pavilion. Signage is on order. :)

These tokens of kindness helped offset a difficult night for Raul Matthew who began showing some signs of stress. It was hard to tell if he was awake, but he had a prolonged spell during which he cried and repeatedly tried to leave our room at the Ronald McDonald House. This all happened after we fell asleep listening to some classical music I had brought along. At one point, I turned on the Colts game on the radio when I heard the cheers coming from the lounge area of the house, and found myself feeling extra down after I learned of their loss. I had fallen asleep during the last couple minutes of the game, but just the fact of hearing that they had lost felt not like the last straw, but we were getting close. It was a bit later that Raul Matthew woke up and began his unconscious quest to find "mommy," I guess. So, I stayed up for a while after that and watched the program, Inside Castro's Cuba, that I had recorded a few years ago on DVD, but had never watched. I have recorded literally thousands of such programs "in case I ever end up in the hospital." Granted, Raul Matthew won't get too excited about watching a 25-hour retrospective marking C-SPAN's 25 years of interviews, but at least it's something.

More good news from today: Myla has graduated from Riley's Butt Cream to Sensi Care cream, which is supposed to be stronger and provide a better protection against the chemo diaper rashes. If the rashes get any worse, then the wound team gets involved. One of them was already here today.

On the way back from Kokomo tonight, I stopped at a Barnes & Noble to pick up a book about "Mistletoe"--some holiday cat, or something. All I know is that Melissa got him the cat last week, and now he wants the book to complete the circuit. I also spent time looking in the classical music section of the CDs and ended up getting a budget-priced disc of 3 Beethoven sonatas, including the "Moonlight." I also got a CD featuring the music of the Canadian Brass who play with organ music--a combo that I find irresistible. Anyway, I brought the power cord to my stereo tonight, so we should have a fairly decent sound system to fall asleep to classical music during the weeks to come. This is a great time for me to introduce Raul Matthew to good music. We've been using the speakers on a cheap TV listen to Beethoven's 3rd and 4th piano concertos the last three days. Tonight, it should be a different game. :)

On a totally unrelated note, Myla makes an adorable "arp" sound after she has been crying. It's a hiccough kind of thing, I guess.

Another thanks to Julie and Jeff--we just opened your gift here at the hospital tonight. :)

Tomorrow should be an interesting day for Myla. The medical staff indicated that we will likely see the first signs of Myla's declining health. This happens when her ANC goes below 500. (See a previous post for more details on ANC). Tomorrow is also the day that she gets the experimental drug, Mylotarg.

Tonight, I passed a worker in the hallway of the hospital who was pushing a dust mop near a Tennant T7 Micro-rider Floor Scrubber machine. I had never heard of such a thing, but I was tempted nonetheless to ask, "Hey, how you like that T7?!" Instead of asking, I just kept walking and he kept sweeping. I just wonder how long I could have kept the conversation going about a topic I'm totally ignorant about. "What an upgrade over the T6 this thing is, isn't it?"

Random images from today: Raul Matthew created floam versions of an ice cream cone as well as an earth and moon. Here's a sign that Raul Matthew has had too many Happy Meals lately. Here's a shot of Melissa getting ready to change a diaper and the scale used to weigh output. And in a radical case of fleeting expressions, Myla went almost instantly from this to this to this. Finally, here are shots of how downtown Indianapolis looked as I drove back to the hospital tonight, Myla over Melissa's shoulder, and tonight's chemo treatment.