Michael

One, Again

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If you are familiar with a place that works, that makes things, you are perhaps familiar with the sing X Days Without an Accident.

I am starting a sign at my house. As of today we have

One Day Without Hospitalization.

I was up to 366 days. It is time to work on a new record.

Another Quiet Day

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In the hospital. But this one is especially quiet. No tests, nothing but being under observation. Tomorrow is the big day. The day of getting cut, in a very advanced way.

I like to say I used up all my bad luck last year. We all hope this is true.

366 Days

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If you have ever worked in a factory, you know the signs. X Days Since Last Accident. I’m going to add one of these to
my wall. X Days Until Last Hospital Vist.

It was 366 days since I was released from my TAVR/Heart_Attack/Stroke/etc visit. I was preparing to take my car into a mechanic, walk the six and a half miles home. It was part of my healing, rebuilding life.

And then I was up early, about 3:30. I coughed up something that didn’t feel right. So I spit into toilet paper. I will leave the description to “bright red and a lot.” Over the next couple of hours I this persisted. I packed up my backpack and called the ambulance. The next day it seems to have subsided. A Broncospcy did not show any active bleeding. After a night of observation I was released. This, by the way, is a side effect of the agressiver radiation treatment for Hodgkin’s Cancer in 1986. It was early treatments and all they really knew.

Less than 24 hours later it was back. Jennifer called her friend Billy and he saved us a call to the ambulance. I’m back in. More consulets today. Probably surgery on Wednesday. We will see.

When I get home I’m putting the X Days Since sign. Shooting to keep it incrementing.

Library in Use

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Jennifer had a library book on hold for months, three or four. It was finally available. While she was in Salem. Could I pick it up for her? Certainly. As I drove home from Salem I decided to stop at our local branch. I wanted to check on the availability of a prescription. I didn’t want to go home and drive right by the library.

I thought, “I’ll use one of their computers.” It seems lots of other people had the same idea, the computers were taken. OK, I took the books out to the car. I got my laptop and brought it back into the library. There were open table spaces. Sat down, logged into the MultcoLibrary-Neighborhood WiFi. Boom, I’m online and able to find that Yes, the prescription was filled.

Yay! for the library. I had what I needed. Even better there was a milk crate of empty paper bags. Just what we needed for the kitchen garbage. Books, a connection to my email, a newspaper, and paper bags, this library provided quite a bit today.

Woodstock Library. Multnomah County Libraries.