I slept in this morning, then got up and checked my e-mail. There was one from Jim saying how happy he was that it was Monday and he's going for his cortisone shot today...just waiting now for someone to pick him up for that. I called him and had to break the news to him that it's only Saturday and he's got to get through the weekend first. He's been here so long he's losing track of time.
So then I spoke to my father-in-law and told him that I hope they didn't plow my truck in, because all I have is an ice scraper. He's telling me, no they wouldn't plow your truck in because they turn the plow when they get to the cars and I used to do snow plowing in the winter and they'd never do that, blah blah blah. Well, guess what...I go outside and sure enough....they plowed my truck in. And this snow was about 6 inches with 2 inches of ice on the top, so it's like solid rock. There's a guy parked next to me in a little sub compact struggling to get out. He was using a snow shovel that he got from the front of the hotel. When he finally made it I asked if I could use the shovel next. He says to me, Oh- you've got a 4 X 4- you can just drive right though this. I tell him, no- I bought the cheap Durango that's just two wheel drive. But luckily the drive train is in the rear. So it takes me about an hour to get the ice off the roof...the last thing I need is all that to come crashing down onto the windshield while I'm driving. I was picking it off in big two-foot long chunks. Then I had to work on the big pile of ice behind the truck. Luckily I didn't have to get rid of all of it. I was able to rock myself back and forth and break through it and get out, but I am so not used to driving this thing, and there were vehicles behind me so I'm petrified. I'm used to a little Neon. Although after five weeks of maneuvering Lahey's parking garage with it I'm getting pretty good. But I can still only pull into a parking space going toward the left. I can't judge the width of the thing very well.
Finally at 12:30 I make it to the hospital. Jim was sitting up in bed using his laptop, and he pointed to a sign he made that he stuck to his bulletin board. It says "Today Is" and a list of dates, including the month. He had "Jimmy comes" next to Sunday. He was spending a lot of time gagging. I'm not sure if it's still from the pnemonia that he's not entirely rid of or if it's from the feeding tube being uncomfortable. But it makes his mouth hurt when he gags, so he talked the nurse into some morphine and fell asleep. I wound up falling asleep in the big chair for three hours right with him. I vaguely remember a nurse coming in to check on him. Then I went back to the hotel to have some dinner, and came back again in the evening.
I've been having to spend a lot of energy trying to keep him encourged...we're almost done...this is the home stretch...you're almost out of here. I keep reminding him of how the surgeon in NJ, before deciding that he didn;t have enough experience with Jim's problem to do his surgery, had told him that he had a 40 percent chance of stroke...if he even survived the surgery at all. And I kept reminding him that even the doctors HERE had given him a laundry list of things that they thought he'd walk away with as permanent injuries, and all he has is this little larynx problem. You're going to beat this, and you're coming home soon. So keep those e-mails coming to him because now that he's getting healthier he's getting more depressed and agitated. His personal e-mail is jimp1102@comcast.net.
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