Same old same old

It was a pretty good day. Zora got some sleep and was in better spirits. Karine and Karl stopped by and we all had a good time.

They gave Zora an MRI. Most likely unnecessarily. But what the hell, it’s nice to contribute to overpriced health care. Somewhere very recently I just read that 10–15 percent of U.S. health care costs are due to unnecessary procedures. Doctors order them because they’re afraid if they don’t, and something goes wrong, they’ll be libel for not performing every test they could.

The rheumatologist, unlike the cardiologist, seems to suspect that the mysterious hand condition (which is fading) is the result of emboli. If were immune related, he believes, it would be in all the fingers are at least by symmetrical. Perhaps he’s right. Repeated emboli would be an indication for surgery. But that’s still not likely. When informed that Zora was going to get an MRI, he looked puzzled and said, “well, better to be safe, I guess.”

So the MRI can see emboli in her brain, if they’re there. Evidently they can’t see them in the hand, because they’re so damn small. If they exists, I believe they’re not actually flappy breaking off, but rather small blood clots breaking off from flappy.

I’m just waiting for the results to come back so I can say they looked at her brain and the results came back negative. Well, even without the results I made that joke a few times, if you can imagine.

Zora described the MRI as a bizarre John Cage-like performance. It’s a very loud machine that’s often very rhythmic.

Meanwhile the rest of us were waiting with dinner and watching TV in the “day room” (which, given the cliental, sometimes looks suspiciously like the lobby of a flop house). I went down to reclaim Zora and found her, as I suspected, waiting an hour in her bed for “transport.”

She can walk just fine. They just like wheeling people around in a hospital for safety’s sake. I didn’t mind being a bit of jerk in here, because I figured we’d never be back in the MRI room (despite my general cardinal rule: always be nice to nurses). I asked the woman manning the MRI waiting room what would happen if we just up and left. She said she would have to call security.

Fueled by two beers, I thought “Fine. This could be fun!” What are they going to do? Take her to her room? That’s where we’re going! Hungry and eager for excitement, I rallied Zora: “You’re not prisoner. You can do what you want!” Just as I had infused Zora with the rebel spirit and we were up and heading toward the door, in comes “transport.” Zora got back in bed and they wheeled her away. Sigh. I told the woman on the way out that I would have just asked for a 2-minute head start. She didn’t seem amused.

I brought my camera today. Here’s Zora in her bed. Notice the new (and somewhat fashionable) nightgown.




Her bathroom setup.



Then Karine and I took Zora for a walk around the hospital. I don’t have any pictures of the I.M. Pei designed lobby atriums. But here is the fry machine. I thought they only existed in Japan.


Mmmm, french fries. They weren’t great. But they did actually seem deep fried. The display on the machine says 15 seconds for “prep time” and then about 2 minutes “cook time.”


Tomorrow’s menu.



Then I tried to take a picture of us with a 2-second delay



Take two!



I admitted defeat and switched it to a 10-second delay.



Karl managed to open the mystery “mirror drawer.” Oh the things we found.



Rubber glove treatment.



Sweet breath.



The girls comment that they “haven’t seen that kind of makeup since the 80’s.”



All clean.



As usual, I was too eager to remember to take pictures of dinner. Karine went out and got Vietnamese food when Zora went down for the MRI. It wasn’t that good. But what can you do. But here’s desert. And notice Zora’s new hot water kettle (courtesy of Karine). Tea anytime, baby!



Assuming the scan of Zora’s brain comes back negative (there I go again), I don’t see any reason she can’t come home again. We’ll see.