Surrounded by disease and pestilence

I don't really remember paying too much attention to people sniffling and coughing, and would express concern when a hearing that a co-worker's significant other / child was ill, but then leave it at that. Now, all that's taken on a new meaning, and/or I've become a lot more attentive to such matters.

Today started with a meeting where in the course of the meeting, while the GPOC was out of the room for a page, the chitchat turned to one person sitting across the table announcing that his two children had just been diagnosed with H1N1. "that's nothing" said another, "did you hear that Pam's daughter is in the hospital with pneumonia?" (I had been in Pam's office on Friday). I now have to fight the tendency to just bolt the room, trying not to touch anyone on the way out. Instead, it is frequent visits to the men's room for hand washing, and using any hand sanitizer bottles that I see as a matter of habit.

Whew, back to my office, where my office mate assures me that his family is healthy, so far.

Then, this afternoon, I had to swing by the Urgent Care Center to have them draw blood for my labs in prep for my appointment Tuesday with Dr. Assefi, the last before the transplant. I go over there, and into the waiting room. That place is usually a triage disaster area of sniffling kids. The place is deserted at 3:30 pm. Great. I check in, and they have me go to a different waiting room, because there is some construction going on.

I just get seated, pick up a Scientific American (the waiting rooms in Loudon County have upscale magazines, I must say). A mother and her 14-or-so year old daughter come in, and the daughter makes a beeline for the Kleenex box, and hacks up a gob of goo. That's all I need, I'm out of there, back to the reception desk asking to be taken to the blood draw room. They comply.

Back home, I get a return call from Kimberly, to an earlier VM that I left her. Each month, between the 1st and 10th, for the past 3 years, I have to go in and get a vial of blood drawn, given back to me and then I mail it to Johns Hopkins where they keep it in the freezer for a month so that if they have a donor they can do the cross match. I wanted to know if I have to do it this period (because this is getting kind of old -- I never seem to sync my Dr. appointments where they always need labs, and this monthly draw, so I end of averaging 2 draws a month -- my vein in one arm is starting to look like a junkie). She said no, the draws that we had done on the 14th of October should be good (wait, that would been three this month) to keep me until the transplant.

She also said that she got the results back from our cross-match two weeks ago and we're still a good, compatible match. I didn't think there would be a change, but sometimes people can get exposed to some virus that triggers the immune system that can get one of us out of sync. So one less thing to worry about.

And more good news today, Michelle said she sold another painting. I knew that she was going up to Hillsboro for an art show this weekend, she took paintings up yesterday and they are to be hung tomorrow, one of hers sold even before they got it up. We're very proud of our newest professional artist in the family.

gc

Wedding Dresses

We took Jennifer wedding dress shopping at Davids Bridal in Woodbridge today.

Waaaay too much estrogen in a place like that. And indecision. Except for Jen. She knew which dress she wanted before even going in the door. Got it on, it was the one. She tried on a couple of others just to make sure, but there wasn't really a chance for the others. Still, it was 2 hours. Some women that were there before we got there were still going strong when we left. There were a few other guys in the store, desperate for a big screen TV and a couch.

And lucky we went today. Turns out it takes 12 weeks for the dress to be made, which makes it arrives in less than a month before the wedding.

Afterwards, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Manassas that does catering. It's Jen's favorite food, and we wanted to see how they would do for one of the meals. I liked it the tapas and mole's. Jen and Michelle didn't. The search continues.

Hopefully tomorrow it will be nice and we can take engagement photos, but Steve has a cold, and we may steer clear of him. The leaves are at the height of color and I wanted to get photos of them with all the fall colors.

gc

wedding date

Oh forgot to add,.. wedding date set for Sun, Feb 14th. Yeah isn't this too sweet, Valentines day. I mean for crying out loud, if poor Steve ever forgets his anniversary, Jen will hang him out to dry! Location is at the Brier Patch, a charming B&B in Aldie VA.
Going up to Philly to meet Steve's family, and small engagement party next weekend, which will be fun but last hurrah before surgery.
Michelle

on a different line

Jen came up with something to take our thoughts off upcoming surgery, .. at least for tomorrow. The three of us are going wedding dress shopping. She's pretty insistent that Glenn be in attendence, something about watching him throw himself to the floor after a couple hours in David's Bridal, seems to please her. Michelle

Oct. 22 The Flu Shots, and the flu

Last week Bonnie, the Innova transplant coordinator, told me that Jen and I and any of our care givers should have the H1N1 Swine Flu shot. Michelle was going to check with the Prince William County Health department this morning and find out what was available.

I was in a meeting in the vault at 9 when my pager went off, but the number was garbled. I had been expecting the guy from Autolite to call me to tell me he was out in the lot waiting to replace the windshield on Maxine (He came on Tuesday to fix a I495 gift of a rock chip in the windshield, and in the process of repairing it, broke the windshield. "It was really unsual, I've never seen that happen before," he said.) So I went out to the car to get the phone.

Instead, it was Michelle calling saying that if we got over to the health department ASAP, we could get shots. I didn't even go back to the meeting, forget the windshield guy, and headed over to Manassas. Michelle and Jen got there at the same time. The waiting room was full of Latin mothers for prenatal care, and the nurses were kind enough to let us wait out side the room of sniffling coughing crying mothers and kids. We filled out the forms in the parking lot, and then they came out, gave me a face mask, and ushered us right back to the room for shots. They had given 180 yesterday, said that's all they were doing now. Later in the day, Steve went up to the health department in Loudon County where he lives and got his shot.

So that's checked off the list.

However.

I got home tonight and Michelle said that Jen has a 100 degree fever, and that Steve also woke up with a scratch throat. So they might have been just a bit late.

Bonnie also called later to say she shipped in the first batch of FMLA leave forms to Deloitte, and said that my surgeon, Dr. James Piper wants to meet also on the 4th for a pre-surgery checkup.

Less than three weeks now.

gc

Oct. 20 -- Paperwork

Called Deloitte HR today and started all the paperwork process to apply for short term leave. Only 10 pages of forms and 4 pages of instructions. Got most of them filled out and now have to send to Innova for them to fill out and process. They have to be back to Deloitte in 14 days.

I can't wait until I see the paperwork that I have to fill out to get into the hospital.

And now I have get to paperwork of a different sort. I get to take Jen and Steve's engagement pictures this weekend, and needed a new strobe and 50mm lens with which to take them. They came by UPS today. See, this wedding has already been a good thing. New toys. And the 80 page instruction manual for the flash.

And the first stream of my books that I'm assembling for the month that I'm going to be house-bound. Amazon also delivered today the new Michael Connelly Harry Bosch novel, Nine Dragons, the new Vince Flynn, Pursuit of Honor, and a new writer that I haven't read before that friend Betsy suggested, C.J. Box's Blue Heaven (which is a cop novel that takes place in my hometown of Sandpoint Idaho). Likely though I'll need more to get me through the month. I'll only be able to take so much of Oprah and Judge Judy.

October 19 -- Testing

I checked in today with Bonnie at the Innova Transplant center to find out the results of last week's tests, and to get updated on the schedule for our next appointments. Kimberly, our normal coordinator was out.
Bonnie said that our cross-type matching, done at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, takes two weeks to process, so we won't hear anything for a while. I asked about upcoming appointments, because Jennifer had gotten a letter for an appointment, and I haven't gotten any paperwork at all (even including the day of the operation). You'd think that they would give you at least one of those little Dr. Office appointment cards that says the date of your next appointment.

She said that Jennifer is scheduled for another round of tests on the 2nd of November, and then both she and I go in on the 4th for pre-op counseling and final tests. What tests, I asked. Another chest Xray, EKG and another set of cross match blood tests.

I was in the office when she called me and I didn't want to go into a detailed conversation, but I was tempted to pull on the thread a little -- if last weeks' tests take two weeks to get back, and the next set is done a week before the operation, when will they be back? After we're all done? But I didn't. I'm trying to be very nice to these folks and not be viewed as a difficult patient.

On the weekend, Michelle and I had spent Sunday afternoon with our friend Barbara at the Hillsboro art show (they looked, I took photos of the old working mill equipment in the basement), and then dinner at her house with her husband Jack. He stayed home to cook lamb and watch the Redskins get cooked. Dinners are always a culinary delight at their house.

Earlier in the day, we met Jen and Steve at the Briar Patch in nearby Middleburg to view a possible venue for their wedding, now set for 14 February. It's a B&B with a nice conference area that they fell in love with, and decided that's where they are going to have the wedding. There is plenty of room in the B&B for all of Steve's family -- s0 they rented the entire place for the whole weekend.

And alumni note -- the Idaho Vandals won their sixth game this season on Saturday, making them bowl-eligible, first time since football was invented, I think. They even lead Boise State in the WAC standings.