Friday, July 25, 2008

Friday - a setback

We were going along fine, but Butch still had one drain which was draining "gunk" from around the area they operated on. It was almost stopped - that was why they took out the 1st one. Today - it started filling up with not so good stuff - pink tinged - so - stop on the discharge, running tests to find out what is wrong. They said we probably won't know until the morning - Will let you know tomorrow.

Other that that - we had a pretty good day. We talked to Brother Tom (Tom Clegg - we have two brother Tom's - Nemcek and Clegg!) on the phone. He had a procedure done yesterday himself - we are glad he is OK. Carolyn sent a card with some pictures of our golf matches - we put them up in his room, Caroline - incentive, you know. Walked 5 times out in the hall - the last time twice as long - this is MUCH, MUCH better than previous days. I took food and drink to the hospital - that V8 fusion I talked about, and other things - we have the fruit, also - so - hopefully, with the boost - he is getting some nutrition. I assure you there is almost NO value in what they feed him, but - he tries to eat it anyway. I had another wound lesson tomorrow - I am almost ready to try it. Butch is not so sick that he isn't a little worried about this - it is a gaping wound, and I have to pack it - my friend Loma wrote that she knows about this - how scary it is - but that they do much better under our care, in spite of our lack of experience. Butch and I sure hope so!

Caroline - we saw on the news that Randy Pausch passed away this morning - what an extrordinary person he was. For those of you who don't know - he was an instructor in computer sciences - here at Pittsburg's Carnegie Mellon - he had cancer of the pancreas, and he fought a valiant fight for over two years, being treated here at UPMC. His blog is available to read, and he is famous for giving his "Last Lecture" - about living live to the fullest. He made a book out of that lecture. Randy said "we don’t beat the Reaper by living longer, we beat the Reaper by living well.”

Let's see - what else is new - oh - I rode the city bus last night to go to the Giant Eagle to buy food for Butch's return - that was a delight, I can tell you. I am a dummy about these things. I noticed that everytime someone got up the loudspeaker said - for example - "stop at Giant Eagle". I said to the lady next to me - "I wonder how they computerized that, that's pretty slick. She just looked at me and said - they pull the rope! Oh well, I guess it wan't as high tech as I was thinking, after all.

My love to all of you, and - keep on praying.

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