Today and Tomorrow

Today's news: I got my Hickman from Hickman. He's an interesting guy. He's a vascular surgeon and looked at a particular vein on my left arm, exclaiming "Alice, come here and look at this! I've never seen anything like this before!"

It seems I have a superficial vein in my arm that goes around in a circle. Yeah, it's just a little cul-de-sac. Vein comes down, makes a 360 degree circle, and then re-attaches to itself.

Dr. Hickman probably worked on Methusela's veins when Methusela was just a boy. For him to say "I've never seen anything like this before!" makes me realize I was his reason for getting up that morning..... and it makes me also see that I'm a bit of a freak. I'm so proud(?).

Sure, I've been looking at that vein for 52 years, but it never occured to me that it was wrong. Now I know.

Anyway, the Hickman/Hickman went quickly. I was already sleepy when they put me on the table and the small amount of sleepy-sauce put me right out. Next thing I knew, I was being asked to wait for Ed.

Dr. Hickman said, "We nailed that one."

The 2 PM consult was mostly informational about tomorrow's adventure.

At 9 AM I'm supposed to show up at 8NE of the UW hospital to check in. During my stay, they'll give me every drug on the planet PLUS some Melphalan. There was a brief discussion about what the Melphalan might do, but since everyone reacts differently, there are no guarantees.

The general consensus is: Thursday will be OK. Friday will probably be OK. Saturday might suck a little. Sunday might suck a lot. Monday might suck worse. But on the other hand, it might not suck at all.

I'm taking the laptop so I can blog from the center of hell. I'll keep you posted.