I’m once again sitting on the back patio enjoying as much fresh air as I can before being re-incarcerated. It’s a bit overcast but the rising sun is peaking through the cloud breaks, turning the tattered edges of the clouds to bright molten gold and pink. Yep, there are definitely perks to being an early bird. The air this morning smells almost like the desert after a rain and I had to stop myself from taking so many deep breaths because I was beginning to feel light-headed! The cardinals, robins, doves and other birds have launched into their dawn chorus and there’s another light breeze ruffling the leaves on the trees. Somewhere off in the distance I hear what sounds a bit like a hawk but the call is harsher. It could be a pissed-off mockingbird or maybe a jay of some kind.

Welp, I’m at the hospital but I’m still in Admissions waiting for someone to take me upstairs to 8 South. I’ve been parked here for over an hour and Rory has long since left for home. I’ve a suspicion that the unit is full or nearly so and that the staff are scrambling to make room for me. Or it could be that most of the nurses know my preference for rooms on the south side of the tower and are doing their best to accommodate me. OR, maybe Dr. Santiago didn’t get the orders in for my admission, but if this were the case then I think the lady behind the desk would have told me. For whatever reason, here I sit. And wait. And wait. And wait. *Sigh*

Whew! I was finally taken up to my room at around 1:15pm. Apparently there were two major wrinkles in my admissions process: 1) My doc didn’t get the admissions order to the hospital when he should have; and 2) there are now new admissions protocols that have basically thrown everything out of whack. I thought I’d missed lunch and was about to dive into the box of Triscuits and jar of peanuts that I’d brought when my nurse, bless her, brought in a tray for me. I told her she was a goddess.😄 The one major downside to all this apart from the long wait downstairs: my room is on the north side of the hospital’s south tower, which means that I won’t be getting any sunlight in my room. However, the way my room is set up, I can look out my window from my hospital bed and see for miles off to the northeast. I may even be able to see the sun tomorrow morning when it rises! This may not be so bad after all.😊

So now I’m fed, unpacked, dressed in proper hospital attire (PHFFFFPFT), swaddled in bandages (well, my right big toe is, anyway) and I’ve had my PICC line installed, once again in the left arm. My chemo won’t start until first thing tomorrow morning when I’ll probably be dragged off to the dungeons before breakfast for my spinal tap. Wheeeee… Oh. Dammit, that also means that I won’t be able to have ANYTHING to drink tomorrow morning, and especially not coffee! Blurgh.

Well, this is just peachy. Dr. Santiago just came by and told me that my chemo might be on hold because of my stupid damn TOE. We can probably do the spinal and the Rituxin but he wants an infectious diseases specialist to take a look at it before we proceed any further. Great. That’s just fabulous. No more walkies for me for a while, at least not in athletic shoes! Ugh, I’m so irritated at myself for not having considered possible injury to my feet but then again, why would I worry about that? Nothing like this has ever happened to me before so I have no frame of reference here. The docs and nurses here are concerned that if we go ahead with the chemo, any infection present (actually, any open wound) could explode into something truly serious like systemic sepsis, which would land me in the ICU. No white blood cells = no ability to fight infection = I’m up sh*t creek.