Hospitalization (yeah, that's right...)

DAY 14: Monday, April 14, 2008
This morning I woke up hopeful of getting out. After a day off of suction on Sunday, they wheeled me down to radiology to get an x-ray. Unfortunately they found that without assistance from the suction, my right lung re-collapsed. So they hooked me up again, and I stay here for now.

DAY 15: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 (Tax Day)
Well, today was no different from Monday. Still on suction all day long. I managed to shoot out another round of emails to group members, advisors, professors, and TAs giving them yet another heads up of the failed attempt to get me outta here. I think I've spammed their inboxes quite a bit in the last 2 weeks now.

Sunrise every morning gets earlier as the days go by. Now it's around 6:15 AM that I see the sun peek out over the trees/horizon. For some reason, the blinds to my window are enclosed in glass from the inside, so I can't really see how to close them. No matter...I even told the nurses not to worry about the blinds on my window. I don't really mind it, except I usually have no choice but to stay awake after 6:30 AM, when the sunlight comes in full force and I can't even see my laptop screen on the brightest LCD setting (I think my window faces the east). Also, around midday it gets quite warm in my room (I'm too lazy to fix the thermostat), so when the aides come by at 2 PM to get vitals, my body temperature's always around 99.4 at that time (as opposed to 98.4-ish at 6 AM).

I'm really bummed that I'm missing the above-average weather outside. They tell me it's around 70 these days (and apparently quite sunny too!). I remember the day after being in the ER it was around 50 and cloudy outside, and I walked to Gannett that morning for the follow-up that sent me straight back to CMC for an unprecedented 16+ days.

DAY 16: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 (1 year after Virgina Tech)
Today I woke up hoping to be off suction again so I could maybe leave tomorrow. Guess I still had a small air leak when I cough, which is no good. As a result, today was the same as the previous two days - tethered to the wall suction all day.

I think the TV hanging on the wall has been on for a total of less than 1 hour in the past 16 days. I just don't watch TV for some reason. I also can't believe I'm still meeting new nurses, aides, nursing professors, and nursing students, but I think I've been here so long that it won't be much longer before I meet the entire crew here at CMC and TC3. The people who have met me before keep saying how they're surprised I'm still here (I am too). I still haven't showered (I do try and bathe with a basin of water and towels!), shaved, nor cut my fingernails in 16+ days, so I really hope I get out soon enough. Lastly, I think I had a record 700 cc of urine in one sitting (or standing, rather) today (that's 70% of the urinal's capacity). That was in the afternoon when I woke up after an after-lunch nap.

...and I really hope everyone's right when they say things with classes can be worked out for this semester, because at this point I'm kind of clueless as to where to start or what to do. After today, I've missed as many days of classes as there are days of class left in the semester.

Thanks again everyone for your continued help, support, encouragement, etc. I really appreciate it. There's nothing else like it when you're in a situation like this. I should probably listen to happier music while I'm here or something...I dunno.