Wednesday March 14, 2007 10:20 PM

Today I called Jim's doctor because Jim seems to have trouble hearing. I called Jim last night three times and he didn't pick up. Then I called the nurse to check if maybe he was sleeping, but she said, no- he's wide awake watching t.v. Finally he picked up the phone. He's telling me he can't hear it ring. I had also been noticing that after this last surgery he's not hearing ME well either when I talk to him, and as you all know, I'm not a quiet woman. I'm trying to be quiet here in the hospital so I don't disturb people, but my quiet is still loud to everyone else. So I guess Dr. Dolan finally took me seriously because I decided to see Jim for a quick visit in the a.m. since he was so depressed yesterday, and when I get there they're in the process of taking him down to the ENT's office for a hearing test, and they asked if I could help push him so they didn't have to call for an aide. Sure, no problem. It turns out he DOES have some hearing loss in the left ear only, but that's due to fluid from the pneumonia, so it should clear. I get him back to his room and put the phone on his RIGHT side. He was still very depressed. And I notice that he keeps using the morphine pump. I asked him what hurts. "Nothing", he says, but he's using the pump anyway. Well, he can't keep doing that because he's going to become a junkie. Oh, and by the way...they're so worried about his staph infection that they wheeled him through the hallway and down to his hearing test with no gown on and no gloves.

I called the social worker when I got back to the room to ask if maybe she can get a psych consult in there for him again, and I told her about him abusing his morphine.

This afternoon Jim's nurse scared the living piss out of me. I call to see how he's doing and she says he just got back from a neck x-ray and Jim says it "wasn't good". Now I'm in a panic...."What do you mean it wasn't good? Who ordered it?" But she knows nothing. So I paged Dr. Tannas. He's just as perplexed. He didn;t order any x-ray, and if they wanted to look at his neck they wouldn;t do an x-ray anyway- they'd do a cat scan. He says he's going to call the nurse and find out who placed the order and what it was all about. In the meantime I get Jim on the phone. Here's the REAL story: Last Thursday when they brought in the oral surgeon they tried to do a panoramic x-ray of Jim's teeth, but the machine was broken and as it spun around it kept hitting him in the head. They'd tell him to "Stay still" and then whack...the thing would come around and hit him, so they never got any good x-rays, which is why the oral surgeon was going to try to get the originals from NJ. Apparently they got the machine fixed now and sent him for a repeat of THAT x-ray. And of course that x-ray would never be good. Anything involving Jim's teeth would not be good. So Dr. Tannas found this out around the same time I did and called me back, and we both breathed a sigh of relief. Jim's neck was so good today they removed the drain.

Then tonight I went to a local spa for a massage. I've never had one of those before. It was nice, but GOD did they use a lot of oil on me. The whole time I'm lying there trying to relax and thinking, Jesus lady...just how greasy am I going to BE after this thing is over? And I found out about 1/2 hour after I left that I'm allergic to the oil they used because I started itching like crazy. I've got to hop in the tub after I write this.

So I went to see Jim after the massage, loaded with my oil, even in between my toes...I squish when I walk...and he seemed in better spirits. He was checking his e-mail, and he wants to see the pic of his tumor so I got him onto this blog...he's never read it. But I guess the doctor found out from the social worker about the morphine thing and they're going to start weaning him off of it starting tomorrow. Of course Jim tells me, "I'll get off morphine when you quit smoking," and naturally I tell him to shut up.

Now for an interesting observation. I usually have a very good nose. I can't hear for shit or see for shit or walk and chew gum at the same time, but I've always had a good sniffer. Remember how I've said in this blog before that Jim stunk? He stunk in his first room after surgery number one, and he stunk in his second room after surgery number two. These rooms were in different wings of the hospital, so you can't blame it on the room. I thought it was because Jim wasn't bathing or brushing his teeth. There was always a heavy, strange odor when you walked in to his room. In fact, I warned Tawanda about it last week before she saw him. I don't know if she noticed it or not. But you know what? That odor is gone, and Jim's not bathing any differently- hell, he's probably worse because he hasn't had a proper bath for over a month- and he still can't brush his teeth. I'll bet that what I was smelling was the infection in his neck. I'm not picking up that smell at all now. And I sat right next to him on the bed tonight...no smell.

So now we just wait for the healing to kick in, and I'm certain that by next week or therabouts he can pass a swallowing test, and then we'll get the hell out of here!