Today it is trains

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4

My mind is blank, or rather, I am drawing a blank when trying to figure out whether or not I accomplished anything todayNo trip into SF.

No knitting. But dishes.

Errands – oh, right – Post Office – mailing out packages to Georgia and Ohio. Picking up pizza and fresh fruit at the grocery store. Driving to Richmond to pick up one son and getting backing fabric for the little girls quilt.

Otherwise? Trains –

the program list on the sewing machine

which

looks like this in progress

and winds up being a series of train cars –

along with the engine

on hand towels for a young man who keeps informing everyone that he “is the engineer.”

Driving in a bubble

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The time was 0930 in the morning and we had left the house on the way to UCSF. The HOV lanes were still active so after making a kamikaze series of four lane changes to the left, we sailed along to the left sided flyover headed toward the Bay Bridge. There isn’t all that much traffic in the left lane, made even less by those single drivers smart enough to get out of the HOV lane before the cameras documents their law breaking activity. From there the flyover lane crosses to the right side and meets up with the HOV lane coming from the Oakland direction. Sailing through the toll plaza, we entered the main portion of the traffic just past the metering lights. To our left, and ahead of us was a small, reddish Fiat. There was no one around the Fiat by 10 meters or so in any direction. In a location where traffic was almost bumper to bumper, there was this bubble of “no drive” around the Fiat.

From there, all the way across the bridge, no matter the speed for the rest of the traffic, this Fiat seemed to travel at a slow and constant speed with everyone avoiding it. Traffic going 40? The Fiat is going 30 and everyone passes it. Traffic going 20? The Fiat continues to sail along with everyone avoiding it. Admittedly, I didn’t see much with it traveling faster than everyone around it. More like it turtling along with every single last car, truck and motorcycle avoiding getting anywhere near the Fiat.

When last seen, it was puttering south on the freeway, its bubble space still intact.

Arriving at UCSF early, George had his labs drawn and his follow up appointment. From there it didn’t run as smoothly as I would have liked. Because his feet hurt, someone hadn’t been drinking enough fluids. Not drinking fluids puts one’s kidneys at risk. Instead of heading home, we wound up spending almost an additional  four hours while someone (fill in the name yourself) received a significant amount of IV hydration.

The drive home was painful as the afternoon rush traffic had already started. My afternoon errands had been completely and totally taken over by hanging out at UCSF while someone’s IV went drip, drip, drip. Taking a deep breath here and releasing the last of the pent up anger, frustration and general disgust….

But the next time someone doesn’t drink enough on his own – he can Lyft or Uber home….

Too far to the game

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Since yesterday was a holiday – the waiting room at UCSF was jammed to the gills with both the Friday and Thursday patients. Since there was little to no traffic, the drive in went smoothly, the clinic was running at full speed and we were able to get out of San Francisco before what would normally be Friday afternoon traffic.

I was tired when we got home. Heading upstairs to finish off (finally) the one quilt, I pulled out the stitching and redid the quilting.

all but the binding

 

and then I moved on to this –

another Liberty Puzzle

with a lot of fun pieces

and decided I was just too tired to think about going to a baseball game. Sent off a message to a fellow member of the group that I wouldn’t be making the game. Then I pulled up At Bat (the app) and sent her off a second message. She concurred as well; Seattle was just to far to go in the next 30 minutes….

enough to gag a horse

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just in case

you were thinking that the medication fun stopped when he was released from the hospital – the pill progression continues. Technically there are 5-6 times a day that something on the scheduled kicks in. The first thing we did after returning home was to take an extremely good look at that schedule.

Of note – the reason that there are 0600 medications in a hospital is that shift change is at 0700. This allows the nurse to make sure that all meds are administered and computer logged prior to the end of the shift. In the bin are those which are once a day, those which are q12 hrs, one which is three x a day, one which is twice a day. Not being completely stupid – I started from the end of the day and worked backwards. My night owl is going to be up past 2100 in the evening, especially with naps during the day. So 2200 is more sensible for “bedtime” meds than 2100. That means that the q12 hours are 10 & 10 and while I am at it, twice a day can follow the same pattern. 3x a day can be distributed between 0700->2200. Those that have to be taken with meals are assigned to breakfast, lunch and dinner and the rest in the morning. (on the basis of that old adage about doing the worst thing first and getting it over with – something about a frog?).

did I mention that there is also a few hundred cc’s of IV magnesium every day?

thought not.

And all of it needs to be balanced around those really essential things in life – naps, meals, news programs, baseball….

Not Vanished

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A quick summary:

Contrary to public opinion, none of us have up and vanished. Life has just been a bit of a slog, more so probably for George than the rest of us, but still, the days have sort of blended together in an unending cycle of up, meds, meals, more meds, naps, work around the sleeping dude, more meals, meds and attempting to have enough energy to do all those basic life functions that involve laundry, grocery stores and cooking (hello? I made a deal 40+ years ago that my life did not include kitchens or bathrooms. Something is seriously wrong here….)

Between 2x weekly trips through insane traffic to SF and running various and assorted errands around here, the last week and a half have sort of slipped by in a blur. Life has been defined in 5 x day medications, sore feet (George), taking out trash & kitchen clean-up (Noah), filling our freezer with tasty goodies (Shana), dog visits (Gwen) and attempting to straighten out the amount of “stuff” that is trying to take over our lives

other than that – the Minnesota Twins are in town for a three day series over the 4th. Tonights game was a bit of a slug fest (3 home runs on each side). For the Twins – Jason Castro is local to the Bay Area. He had a huge number of family and friends present. If someone wThere as going to hit two home runs for the Twins, I am glad it was him. If someone was going to hit a grand slam – it was terrific that it was our brand new catcher in his first game in the majors.

And believe it or not – there are some rude Twins fans. LA and Houston fans have come to understand that there is always sound coming from the Coliseum Right and Left Field Bleachers; it is not worth complaining about. Especially if one attempts to do it a al D Trump on Twitter. Hello? There is no such thing as “too much Cow Bell…..” Oh – final score? 8:6 As

Monday morning traffic

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Sucks at the best of times. This morning was not one of those. In the future, I think there are two choices – either get on the interstate at University Avenue, work my way over to the left hand HOV lane and drive faster than a crawl. Or.. take the frontage road all the way on the Bay side to Powell Street and get on the freeway there which is just at the start of the maze and just short of where the HOV lane dumps in from the northbound branch of 580. I did the worst – got on in between University and Powell which meant there was no chance at all of getting safely across 5 lanes of traffic and having to spend more than 20 minutes crawling along between two freeway entrances.

The only good thing was that once we were past the start of the congestion we were able to access the right hand HOV lane and literally flew along the right fly-over looking down with sneers at all of those sitting in stopped traffic. HOV here is 3 people in the car which should explain why I had Noah up and about much earlier than his normal routine. Him getting sleep was much less relevant to me than shortening our car ride by an hour or more. Once past the toll plaza, the traffic wasn’t all that great but moving is much better than creeping or standing still.

I have finally figured out UCSF’s parking ramp. Having also appropriated Alex’s old wheelchair from its (final-not) resting place in the garage where it was stored just in case anyone would need it again, we made fast work of getting from the garage to the clinic. Yes, George can walk but he still is having significant foot pain so why would we make him hobble?

Appointment went well. Number of meds is not going to decrease anytime in the near future. OTOH, it is obvious that the stem cell transplant has taken hold.

I managed to finish embroidering the last of the little girls onto the quilt top.=

color gamp 3×6 embroidered

now it is just a matter of the backing, quilting and tossing it over to Shana for the finishing.

 

and yes, there is knitting

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since it is something I can pick up and put down whenever there is an interruption.

Last Friday, when I stopped at Avenue Yarnshttps://www.avenueyarns.com – I decided to buy another ball of some kind of cotton that would be easy and simple. Katia Yarns produces this lovely Fair Cotton Craft. One ball makes a number of simple items, scarves and small blankets being among them. (Free Pattern on their website, you just have to hunt inside the pattern for your particular language since they have produced a “one pattern for everyone and every language.”)

147 stitches

 

across and a simple increase/decrease that reverses with 10 stitches between each repeat. Each color appears only once with the majority of the yarn being a basic natural. Size 3.5mm needles and I was all set. Task list, yarn, headphones, audio book….

 

 

Not again

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Yesterday we had the trip into the city. It was not fun, as you can imagine. And, in further total destruction of my joy, George received a call last night informing him that one of his medication levels was off. Off enough that we needed to come back in this morning and get redrawn.

Oh, joy.

Deciding that the crack of dawn wasn’t needed, we headed out of the house about 0900 in order to make the 1030 deadline he had been given. So we sailed out of the house and I stopped by Peet’s in order to be fortified. Then on to the freeway, and into the maze and across the bridge where there was almost no traffic.

What the f)(*U(*&^*?

We were headed home less than an hour after parking the car (good news for me, parking is by the hour and saving $3/4 is always welcome). Proves once again that there is absolutely no way of predicting traffic in this area.

Oh, and those lab results? Turned to be an issue of which cannula the blood had been drawn from. Not an issue of his meds which meant he should continue on exactly the same meds.

Really long day ending exactly where we started.

The As are in Los Angeles along with a serious number of both Right and Left Field crews. After managing to lose last night, they beat the Angels 7:2. Some how, it is just not as fun to watch a game on TV as it is to be in the stands.

The Waiting Game

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this post is being written in multiple sections:

0550 – heading out the door with a stop planned at Peets for coffee. Just in case I can spring George, getting across the Bay Bridge gets more and more difficult the later one tries. It is go now, or wait till after 1000. That second choice means that most likely I would both miss a chance to ask any remaining questions of his dock – and finding a parking space? Not likely.

1100 – Waiting. The Nurse Practitioner has been by. The pharmacy has dropped off a huge bag of supplies (with a co-pay no where near as dreadful as it could have been. At this point, I am happy with anything in double digits.) Platelet count is climbing, he has white cells. The decision was made to top him off with a unit of blood (which may well avoid a trip back this weekend…)

1400 -Still Waiting

1500 – Just about to lose my mind, one of the nurses manages to get all of the discharge papers so that I can meet him at the front door. Scrambling to get the car out of the ramp and through the other equally insane people who are trying to get family members freed and on the road.

This is Friday. There is traffic. For any of you who live in/near a large city, you know exactly what I mean.

After a scramble around other cars and stupids standing in the middle of the road staring at their cell phones, we are loaded up and on the way home.

14 miles for those who understand the old fashion English measurement system which the US is still wedded too. 22 KM for those in the rest of the world. At 120 km/hr down the Autobahn – this should be a piece of cake – right? For those who have to escape the gridlock of SF and the freeway system complete with on ramps on both sides and exits seemingly scattered randomly to those locations where they would most disrupt traffic, there is absolutely no fast, easy way out of the city. If anything, the Bay Bridge was even worse. My GPS wanted me to head toward Oakland. Stupidly, I didn’t believe it resulting in extra time sitting on the entrance to 580 North. Oakland + city streets would have saved 15-20 minutes. Not an insubstantial amount of time when you would like to gleefully murder the idiot in front of you who is totally disrupting traffic by continually changing lanes. He gets nowhere fast; in fact, significantly contributing to the disruption of traffic flow.

It is just about 1700 when we finally pull into the drive way.

Everyone is glad to be home. And to have us home, if the totally and completely excited golden retriever trying to crawl out the downstairs apartment window is any indication.

We still have meds and some organizational stuff to get put together. But George needs to lay down. And I need a couple of minutes of total peace and quiet.

 

Why not wait till the last minute?

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That works in life, baseball and medical decisions. After all, one needs all the facts before considering where to go next.

The As pulled off an amazing win (thank Chapman’s home run with two on in the bottom of the ninth). Unfortunately, I left at the end of the eighth. Just too much to do on top of freezing in the windy stadium.

Backing up now to the morning – BART + the N-Judah. With the potential for being able to spring George either tomorrow or this weekend, the nurse coordinator had scheduled the mandatory teaching sessions. So there was the dietitian, the pharmacist, the infusion service (going home with a line to continue IV meds is much better than hanging out in the hospital.)

[Aside. Back in the old days – 1970s for example, it was absolutely unheard of for a patient to be receiveing IV therapy outside a hospital environment. Admittedly, we didn’t have the fancy micro-chip computer pumps that are the standard today,  – but the idea that anyone would provide care that was normally within the provenance of nursing or medical care just didn’t occur to anyone. There wasn’t much change through the 80s and into the 90s. Several outside influences came into play – law, policy, cost – and the attitudes of what could be done at home vs. hospital changed drastically especially once we entered the era of “managed care” and “utilization management.” Besides spawning an extensive industry of home health care, a significant portion of care was shifted from health care professionals to family members. What, in some ways is really surprising, this didn’t include laundry, bed linens or food, unlike much of the rest of the world. Which takes us today. People go home with draining woods, central lines, and occasionally the need for infusions around the clock. None of which are seen as requiring “skilled nursing care” if a family member can be instructed.]

Now it is a matter of waiting – to see if his blood counts are stable over night so that we can blow this popsicle stand tomorrow. Somehow the staff seems to think that hanging out over the weekend, even if I have to drive him over every day would be more than satisfactory. Me? I want George home. But the prospect of having to drive over twice a week is daunting enough. Extra trips? The thought makes me shudder.

Anyway, I still have to stop at the grocery store tonight, sort out a few things at home and otherwise get organized.

 

Getting there

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It seems like I spend my days getting there. From here, to there and back again. Or to the ballpark, grocery store, diner, UCSF. Not necessarily in that order, please understand. But the idea of having a whole day at home is really appealing.

I am thinking I can schedule it for next Tuesday.

Unless something else comes up, just saying.

between now and then? UCSF tomorrow day, perhaps the As in the evening. Same for Friday. Saturday and Sunday are going to depend on whether or not I can spring George, which is starting to look more hopeful than earlier in the week. If he escapes, then it will be back to UCSF all day Monday as an outpatient. Which takes me to Tuesday – which is where I started this conversation.

I spent the morning at UCSF. George actually had a few platelets of his “own” this morning so that trend is hopeful. The attendance at this afternoon’s As games was less than optimal but considering it is a Wednesday afternoon, there were the usual serious fans, retirees and busloads of school/summer camp kids. The As pulled off a nice win and swept the series. Considering we were facing the poor Baltimore Orioles, it could have been embarrassing otherwise.

Noah returned today from San Diego –

with Gwen

who is suffering a cut necessitating the cone of shame.

After taking the crew out to Barney’s for burgers – I started a new puzzle (Ecru–from Artifact Puzzles) before wiping out completely.

just started

the picture of the finished puzzle

 

Q 2 months

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The good thing about staying in the Outer Sunset is that I was right across the park from SFVA. It isn’t bad walk; under 2 miles (US measurements) and almost a straight line. As I might have mentioned the last time, the only challenging part is this last six blocks straight up hill. Add in a bag and a travel backpack loaded with my clothes from the last couple of weeks and it turned into a real slog.

Since the coffee stand was open in the lobby, I was able to reward myself with a nice latte and a croissant.

(skipping forward to 1535) I was able to take the shuttle over to UCSF and spend a few hours with George. He is doing better on the white cell front and may actually escape this place within a week or so. It is the lack of platelet recovery that is holding things up. My original plan was to then head to the ballpark, but by the time I hit the N-Judah stop, I was exhausted. Stomped back upstairs, pulled out the backpack and extra bag and just headed home. Dani was able to bail me out of BART which saved me the significant hassle of trying to work my way home after all the buses had quit running.

And the game I missed? Home run slug fest. Darn.

004

Without Cowbell

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Color everyone around me amazed.

I survived this mornings removal of the old fridge and placement of the new. It was a real slog for the delivery guys since they had, once again, a big truck. They parked on the street. Wheeled the fridge up the steep driveway on a dolly, then hauled it up the 20 slate stairs to the house. Plus the two steps up into the house, and the steps back down to the kitchen level (via the living room so as to avoid narrow corners and doorways.

 

It was after 1100 by the time the new one was hooked up and working. From there it was off to BART (usual route to UCSF) and spent the afternoon with George. Snuck out about 1800 and headed to Oakland.

Just barely made it to my seat before the first pitch. The Mariners have left town and the Orioles have arrived. And, since I hadn’t had enough sense this morning to pack for the game – I was completely without my cowbell…The As managed to squeak out a win. I headed back to SF and the Outer Sunset for the night

Forever on BART

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The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system covers portions of Contra Costa County, essentially all of Alameda County and San Francisco. It doesn’t cover south on the Peninsula much past SFO. There is the underway runnel connects San Francisco with the East Bay. Since the system was developed in the 1970s, maintenance was not exactly factored in. Not sure why but in order to work on the tracks under the Bay, the whole system has to be taken down to uni-directional for that stretch. Admittedly, the weekend is the best time to conduct this sort of work, the ridership is much less than that of weekdays. If people are smart, they will plan to stay on one side or the other.

And then there are those like me who need to get across the Bay, or from Berkeley to the Coliseum which did not involve a train change for Alex & me. However with just one train from our station, it meant that we also had the entire “going to San Francisco” crowd on the train.

We will ignore the As game, Lou Trivino, dropped balls and the Mariner’s four run 8th inning.

The real fun began on the way back. Only one train from Freemont/Dublin etc and going to Richmond. Want to go anywhere else? Change at 12th for SF or MacArthur for Antioch. When we finally were able to get on the ONE train headed across the Bay to SF, it was sardine time again. A change to the N-Judah at Embarcadero saw only minimal improvement. It was also packed. End result was that it took almost 90 min from the Coliseum to UCSF.

And, it took just about as long to get back to Berkeley with N-Judah -> BART with the same only one train going under the Bay -> change at 19th.

When I got home, it was more than time to crash.

It wasn’t my fault

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Seriously, it probably has been over a year since we have seen the second car key. Having a car with only one key means that it is critical to manage the remaining key. There is a hook in the kitchen where we keep all the misc keys. The end hook next to the door is the designated post for the car key. It wasn’t there this morning.

I looked at the bus schedule – 25 minutes to the AC65. I had time to look. After spending 20 minutes of my remaining time till the bus fruitlessly searching the house (upstairs, main floor, all the rooms) I turned up neither the key or my missing pair of glasses. I sent Dani a txt checking to see if she was awake, my alternative to the bus being a ride to BART which could also net me a stop at Peet’s for coffee. Awake, she came upstairs a few minutes later. And handed me the car key.

“Sorry,” she said, “I hadn’t had time to bring it upstairs.”

Going from that to working my way through the BART system and arriving at  UCSF was a picnic after that.

George’s doctor stopped through (not the attending, fellow, etc but his doctor who is the head of the transplant service) to let him know that his marrow is recovering. Upon request (which obviously happened) they manually looked at his blood slide. He has some neutrophils and the occasional monocyte. Means the transplant is starting to work. Red cells and platelets take longer. No clue how much longer, but sooner or later he won’t need daily transfusions…

So we spent a quiet day, ending with watching the As (and listening to RF149 which comes through clearly) and thinking that I should have braved the cold and gone to the park. I am headed back to Berkeley tonight, then going to the game tomorrow afternoon.

 

D+15

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It seemed sensible to take you back to the count up (rather than down) so that all of us would have at minimum a clue without having to spin the wheel or ask Vanna White (Jeopardy – old TV show game for the non-US). George is getting really, really bored. Since he is occasionally coughing (which I don’t think is infectious but related to side effect from the chemo) he is stuck in his room. I thought about making him a t-shirt that says “help, I am a prisoner on 12-Long.” If I went with black and white stripes? Nah – the staff is wonderful and I am not sure that they would fully appreciate the attempt at humor.

We seem to be back to normal weather for this time of year. The fog is rolling in regularly and the temperatures have dropped down so that it is chilly at night again.

Quiet day, I am trying to find all the files that I have tucked here and there on the computer in order to make some progress on those papers which are still hanging over my head. It was Graduation Day for the five Norwegians who were here this past year for the LLM program. Thanks to WhatApps, they sent us pictures.

I elected not to go to the game tonight, just headed home on BART, stopped at the Safeway for food and made a bit more progress on my puzzle before heading to bed early.

maybe 1/3?

 

A walk in the park

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From where I am staying in outer Sunset, it is just a short hike across Golden Gate Park to the SFVA. Of course, I can just ignore the fact that the portion of the stroll from the park to the VA is straight up 42nd.

at the top of the map

 

you can see the location of the VA. and at the bottom you can see the small upside-down “V” where the cross-road park road connects to the streets on the north side of the park. Please count them, five blocks straight up hill, a definite challenge on a cool and foggy morning.

It was dental day for me. Like many others of our generation, I have a significant amount of dental work. Due to the care and diligence of Army (and Air Force) dentistry over the years, I still have all of my teeth (except for wisdom which exited when I was in med school thanks to the U of MN Oral Surgery Residency Program. $25, thank you very much). In fact, I have had one crown for a significant number of years, enough that I actually have worn through the crown. Today’s mission impossible for my poor dentist whom I have gotten to know rather well over the last two years, was to see if it could be patched with the alternative facing me of a new crown. Much as I really appreciate the SFVA dental staff, I don’t need to devote another several ½ days to the dental clinic. A successful patch later, I was about to go out the door. Only one dental issue left in my future – replacement of crown that will involve a visit to the periodontist. Since the previous dentist retired, there is only a part-timer on contract. His tech stopped in – would I be able to trade my August appointment for returning this afternoon?

Of course!

It was only a matter of taking the shuttle over to UCSF and hang out with George for about three hours and taking the shuttle back. Nice guy (family Ukraine -> Israel -> to California) which means, of course, his practice is in Menlo Park (altho he denies living in Sunnyvale). His tech’s family came from China when she was young. My dentist’s family came from India. The nurses and cleaning staff are equally reflective of who takes care of our veterans–it is the new immigrants and their children. The ones that feel that they are contributing to the U.S. by taking care of those who serve. And often, they are also first to volunteer should the country need them and at a much higher rate than those who are two generations or more in the U.S..

(off soap box).

After being told to expect pain, I breezed through the pharmacy and ran for the shuttle, getting back to UCSF by 1600. I spent the afternoon just hanging out with George, then we watched the first three quarters of the Warrior-Raptors game before I headed to the N-Judah. He still has squat for white cells or platelets; I figure another week in this place. He is bored, he is tired. If you want to email him directly – georgeDOTrehmATicloudDOTcom with substituting the appropriate punctuation  It would be a lot more appreciated by him than me playing momma monkey and plucking loose hair.

 

Puzzling along

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

D+ too many to still be short on platelets or white blood cells, but there we are. (So yesterday, between running errands in the East Bay)

so, there was this lovely

smaller size, Artifact Puzzle. Less than 200 pieces so it went together fairly quickly.

which lead to –

also Artifact

just look at all those squiggly pieces

 

which meant I really didn’t spend any significant time trying to put together edges, but rather tackled a few of the objects before I needed to head back to San Francisco.

 

All of which has much more color than sitting here quietly talking, ignoring the TV and knitting while listening to audiobooks.