Monday August 6, 2007 9:53 PM

We got a couple of donations envelopes from Lahey Clinic in the mail the other day. I think what I'll do is send them some boxes filled with contaminated poop and say, "Here's your donation. You can have your c-diff back."

Jim had a regularly-scheduled follow up appointment with the pulmonary guy last Friday, which I thought was good timing since he's still got this problem with the cold and he's still coughing up crud. I was thinking that the doctor might admit him, so I was waiting for the phone call. Jim called and said, "What are you doing Monday?" I was holding my breath. "Why?" I said. He said he had to report to Kennedy hospital on Monday morning for another bronchoscopy so the doctor could suck the crud out of him again. So that's where we went this morning. I got Nick and Judy to come get Jimmy on the bus and we headed out. I am so sick of hospitals.

Jim reported there at 8 a.m. and he got registered, etc., etc. Then they called him back to the same-day surgical unit at 9. We were waiting in one of those little prep rooms for awhile and then they took him back. They told me the procedure would only take about 15 minutes. I'm sitting there reading my book...my latest read is something I picked up at the Thomas Jefferson University Medical School's bookstore the last time Jim was in the E.R., "Netter's Gastroenterology." I find it very interesting. I hear a nurse come onto the floor and say, "So eight's being admitted? Eight's being admitted?" and my eye scans the numbers above us....one, two, three, four....oh SHIT....we're in eight!. Then the nurse comes in and tells me to wait back in the outer waiting room. I'm waiting and waiting and when Dr. DeBoer comes out I'm expecting him to tell me that Jim's staying, but that's not quite how it went. He showed me pictures of Jim's larynx before and after. He explained to me that when your larynx is not working right your right lung tends to fill up because of the way the bronchial tubes are positioned....the right one is a straight shot down from the larynx, the left one's tubes are slightly turned. Jim's right lung had been completely filled with fluid and it had come up so high is was bubbling around the larynx. This had basically started with the cold, but since Jim still can't fully control his own spit, at night when he sleeps the secretions just drop right down into the lung. He got Jim all cleaned out, and he's sending a sample to the lab. If the sample comes back positive for antibacterial resistant staph again, then he'll call Jim to be admitted, because the only drug he can give him that will work on staph and not interfere with his c-diff infection is intravenous vancomycin. I told Dr. DeBoer....look....Jim's scheduled for a manometry study this Friday at Thomas Jeff. It's necessary he do that test so that he can get back into swallow therapy again and so that he can get his throat stretched. If I have to reschedule that test it will only delay his swallowing progress and it will just delay getting him the help he needs to manage those secretions, and we'll only wind up back at Kennedy again. It's a vicious circle. He understood the need to get him in for that manometry and said to call him on Thursday. If Jim has to be admitted he'll let us go to Philly for the test, then stop at Kennedy on the way home and Jim can check in then. So we'll see what happens. If I were a betting woman, I'd say there's pretty good odds Jim's going back "inside".

I told Jim to please cut this shit out. I'm sick of hospitals. When he got home he seemed pretty with it and stood there talking to his parents and made himself a bowl of cream of wheat. Then he slept for the rest of the day. When he woke up tonight he didn't remember anything that happened, so I had to explain it again. I picked him up a small MickyD's cheeseburger which he managed to get half of down, in between making choking noises and spitting up phlegm. So gross.

I take my last dose of flagyl tonight and I'm scared to death to leave the house now. I can tell my digestive system's still not "right" but until I have another attack there's nothing I can do about it. I have to prove to the doctor that the c-diff's not out of my system. So I bought myself a bag of Depends. Yeah...that sounds gross, but I'm not going on any long drives without them. I said to Jim tonight..."Look what we've been reduced to. You're sick and I'm wearing Depends. Did you ever think it would come to this?" It's so romantic.