Tuesday March 13, 2007 8:56 PM

Damn...this is the 30th post entry. You know what that means. I'VE BEEN HERE WAY TOO LONG!

I called Jim's nurse in the ICU late last night to check in on him. They were moving him at midnight up to a regular ward- the same ward as last time- 7 West. Not 6 Southeast where they let him bleed out of his mouth for 10 minutes. I had a shrink appointment at 9 a.m. and figured I'd go look for Jim after that. I get a call from Bryan around 8:30 that Jim left him a voicemail at 5:30 a.m. Then Jim must have realized it was 5:30 a.m. and of course, no one's at work yet! So while I'm sitting with the shrink my cell phone goes off, and it's Jim. "Where's my laptop?" I tell him, back at the hotel. I'm not bringing an expensive laptop to the hospital where someone can steal it. "I want to get some work done" he says. I tell him he's crazy...I'll come find him when I'm done. Plus he's still got morphine in his system so God only knows how he'd be answering his e-mail. So I stopped by quickly in the a.m., introduced myself to the nurse, checked that he looked good and was comfortable, then went back to the hotel to get some work done. He's still under contact restrictions because of the staph so you have to grab a yellow gown from a shelf in front of his room to go in.

I went back late in the afternoon and apparently he flunked his swallowing test again, so the feeding tube was going to go back in. He was so depressed about that. I kept telling him, "Look- you passed one swallowing test, you'll pass another one. You just have to heal from the last surgery." The social worker came in, too, but there was nothing you could say to make the guy feel better. The infectious disease doctor came in and checked him out. He liked what he saw. Then came the otolaryngologist, or ENT (eye, ear, nose and throat) like they call them around Lahey. This ENT is a woman that I've spoken to many times but still can't remember her name. I was there when they put the tube in. Let me tell you, I hope whatever sadistic sick pup that ever invented that torture device had to have one at some point in his life- he (or maybe she) deserves it. I couldn't watch, but it was horrific listening to. It made the poor guy choke and gag and he was in a lot of pain afterwards. I got the nurse to give him a sedative when it was done to make him more comfortable. Then they have to get X-ray to your room and make sure it's in the right place. Turns out the nurse had to push it a little further down...thank God he was sedated for that. Once it's in right they can pull the wire out of the thing so the tube is softer and "more comfortable". I can't imagine anything making that tube more comfortable.

But he's just got to get better from the pneumonia and his larynx has to heal some more and then we'll try again in a few days. In the meantime, without that chocolate-flavored crap going into his stomach- he won't have any strength.

While the ENT was there I asked her if she liked the look of Jim's neck...is everything o.k.? She says, "Why- does something not look right to you?" and I tell her, "It looks o.k. to ME, but it looked o.k. to me LAST week, too. I'm asking YOU." So she says it looks like it's healing well and she's going to have a different kind of drain put into Jim's neck tomorrow. They keep a drain in that they flush every day to make sure there's no infection building up in the space. So the poor guy's got a drain stikcing out of his neck that he keeps in his hospital gown pocket, i.v.'s all over the place, and a big tube up his nose and down his stomach. At least they took the catheter out again so he can get up and go to the bathroom himself.

Now onto something a little amusing: You know how I've said that Jim's under "Contact Restrictions" because of his staph infection? Well, apparently this morning no one looked at his chart and they took him through a walk around the ward...all up and down the hallway. And his nurse in the afternoon wasn't even putting a gown on when she came in the room. So much for THAT, right? And you wonder why these things run all through hospitals.

I was able to get the scans on Jim's tumor on CD. I've posted a REAL-LIFE picture of his tumor pre-surgery on this blog. It looks like a cartoon, but I assure you, it's real. You can see the main carotid artery at the bottom and then it splits into the inner and outer carotid (one feeds blood to your brain, and one feeds it to your face). You can't even SEE the inner and outer arteries because the tumor was so entrenched around the thing.