Mechanics

Having H. home not quite a week has sure changed the landscape around here.  A huge box of medical supplies was delivered Thursday along with a visit from a home health nurse.  The PICC line has to be flushed twice a day and dressing change once a week.  We are doing the flushes now (after being trained) and the dressing changes happen when the nurse visits every week.  Only we are thinking we are going to need to be trained on that too (they seem reluctant to let us do that and I don't blame them - direct lines to his heart aren't something we feel too comfortable messing with either - but we also don't like a sweat-drenched bandage staying on him for days after it should) - so we'll see.

We had the first visit with the oncologist yesterday and H. is set for chemo next week in the doctor's office.  I am so relieved about that.  We glanced at the infusion therapy room at the hospital as we were departing last week and I can't imagine a more depressing place to receive cell-killing fluids.  Picture a huge room with a ton of people sitting on 'chaise-like' chairs all hooked to IVs.  No privacy.  No entertainment to pass the time.  It looked and felt depressing just passing by.  The doctor's infusion room is big but each patient has a little 'cubby'-like space for a little privacy.  Each chaise has it's own TV and one family member can sit with the patient as well.  The nurses were very nice.

As infusions go (we've recently learned), H.'s is pretty quick.  Probably 3 hours total.  We are trying to prepare him for the next infusion to likely not be quite as 'easy' as the first.  And so on and so on.  But he's 20 and as far as he's concerned, it's pretty easy so far.

I'm fine with him sticking with that - and pray he's right and they are all 'pretty easy'.

We've had delicious meals delivered by friends the last week - including the saint of a friend who cooked Easter dinner for us.  Ham, fresh green beans, sweet potatoes, rolls and chocolate cream pie for dessert.  It was delicious.  Enough leftovers to get us through most of this week, too.

A 2nd refrigerator is being delivered this Friday - we've been thinking about doing that for awhile and this was the nudge we needed.  The fridge and freezer are jammed full and H. needs daily juice and also some protein shakes at the ready as well - along with milk, etc. - so a 2nd fridge will really help.  We started to buy a relatively inexpensive one for the garage (no ice maker) and then realized 'why don't we buy a new one for the kitchen and move the 13 year old 'old one' to the garage?'.  So that's what we're doing.

And a bonus plus:  we did some culling of the garage to make room for the fridge and that's always a good thing.

The cleaning crew is arriving in an hour - uber early for them to be here.  I set an alarm to be sure I'd get up and will head out to gas up my car, get dog food, probably an iced tea and then heading to my office to say 'hi' in person.  I took this week off at the gentle urging of the HR director and I'm glad I did.....but I miss my friends and want to say 'hi'.

We also helped H. rearrange his room a little - another massive culling of things from his closets.  Goodwill, here we come!  For his birthday, we bought him a New York skyline poster and it's up on his wall with a black light on it and when the lights are off, it does look really, really cool.  We've also given him the OK to have a friend to some 'graffiti-like' art work on a wall - trying to brighten it up for him.  There's room now for friends to sit on chairs in his room with him (for the days when he's not feeling like getting out of bed much).

J. and I head to the garden when we need to step away.  I love that our yard gives us copious amounts of things to do and the more we do, the more beautiful it looks.  Except there was a huge windstorm last night so the pool and spa are a mess at the moment - but the garden is shaping up.  We already have some blooms on our cherry tomato plant and the flowers we've planted are taking off.  I had to drastically cut back the nasturtiums and know they will be back draping into the spa in short order.  Nasturtiums are the easiest flower to grow and so pretty -

Guess that's it for now.  Need to get moving on tidying in the study and then get showered before the cleaning ladies arrive.