22 January 2006

Still no setbacks. Zora get a little better every day. The greatest pain right now is in her lower back. No doubt from compensation and bad posture. She has a heating pad for that. And percocet. I slept in the hospital again and took two more vidodins last night. It wasn’t all that. So I think my drug binge is over and pharmacies may relax their security. Zora’s drugs are giving her some weird dreams and perhaps the occasional late-night hallucination. But nothing too bad.

Zora’s vision continues to get perhaps just a teeny bit better every day. Perhaps it’s up from one percent to two percent. Not much. But daily progress is still progress. The surgeon seems to think that some vision may come back in the next few months. But he’s far more optimistic than the ophthalmologists, who are supposed to know this kind of thing.

But overall Zora is doing great. I helped her take a shower and washed her hair. She is walking quite well. She can go up at least a half-flight of stairs, and I’d bet more. And we went outside for the first time today for about 10 minutes, to an outside inner courtyard.

Her breath-o-meter is showing about a 20% improvement everyday. It’s like an asthma peak-flow meter. But it measures the inhale rather than the exhale. Using the contraption is also good exercise for slow deep breathing. She’s now inhaling up to 1,100. From 900 yesterday, 750 the day before, 500 the first day. The meter goes up to 5,000. On a good inhale I can get it up to about 4,500.

As far as we know, the discharge is still scheduled for tomorrow. And Tamara and Karine, the replacement team (I don’t want to call them second-stringers), are scheduled to arrive Wednesday and Thursday. As Karine put it: “Just think of us as the relief squad, coming on the field as the first-string players head to the bench for some gatorade.”

This got Tamara thinking:
HEY!! Wait a minute. If the first string players are off the field drinking gatorade, have we already had our gatorade, or do we have to wait until we are done playing? And what if there isn’t any left because SOME people (Peter) have drunk it all? Dude. I am bringing my own gatorade, just in case.

Travel on, dudes.

I’m going to make her a mild Chinese beef and spinach (lots of spinach) for Zora’s dinner.

Here’s the Vietnamese sandwich store from yesterday.


Inside the store.


Mayo. Lots of mayo. Zora likes mayo.


Sergeant Salvation Army.


Eating bahn mi.


Today we went on our wilderness trek to the 6th floor patio.


What is this thing you call “the outside”?


Great ball of fire in the sky! Zora hasn’t been outside for over a week.
What a beautiful picture of her.

Zora and me.


Meanwhile, I’m sure everybody is wondering how my finger is doing. Thanks for asking. It’s healing quite nicely, thank you.



And Flappy’s rating are finally going down. As my Aunt Patty Jean put it, “Good riddance to sweeps week.”