After I updated last night, John, who was my resident during induction stopped by to say hi. He was working over night in the hospital and fortunately had a nice chunk of time to come chat with me. We talked a little about leukemia, my head on leukemia, interesting patients we've seen, John's plans for next year, the various joys of medicine. Ira Byock talks about the patients' problems in the hospital being loneliness, boredom and isolation. I don't usually feel visited by any of them, but was starting to see the wisdom of Ira's thoughts. John's kind visit went a long way at helping with those things for me Sunday. Thank you!
Monday I had two visitors planned (which--see above, I needed!), but when I considered today's plans, I was a little worried because I was supposed to get chemo this morning with benadryl and then Terry was going to come visit in the morning and then Ana in the afternoon. I was worried about how I was going to be awake enough to enjoy them and be much fun for them to visit.
The morning started out OK with me able to stay awake and talk with Terry although I felt a little logey and wasn't sure I was making lots of sense. I also felt a little nauseous, like you do when you are overtired. I put up with it and we had a nice visit. Then Terry went to get lunch, I had a short, short nap and we went for a walk. When I woke from my nap, I felt completely refreshed and happy to have only spent a little bit of time in sleep rather than the whole morning as I would usually do.
Terry left, I had lunch, then Ana came and we hung out and then went for a walk. I finished the afternoon feeling great and ready to attempt to face down the benadryl the day after tomorrow. It is nice to think that I may not be forced to sleep by the benadryl unless I want to. ha! take that, you bully!
Other activities for the day included email, reading the new John Irving book, and the old Annals of Internal Medicine. There was a nice article about diabetes management in there and a very, very nice essay called "The Knot" which I would recommend.
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