Day + 10

I'M HOME!!!

Nothing like home sweet home.  My numbers climbed again overnight and this morning I was discharged.  I feel so much better than yesterday.  Last night they stopped the IV antibiotics so I was not connected to the IV pole.  I slept very well.  The nurses came in early today very happy to report the nightly labs came back very strong and were very confident I would be out early today. 

Dr. Burt came in around 9:00 to say I was free to go, shook my hand and wished me well.  I thanked him on behalf of Bea and I and he left.  I never found a way to connect with him but I don't think if my admission were 100 days that would have changed.  He's a brilliant scientist with a passion for his work to help people beat their diseases.  He practices a different kind of medicine than most of us are used to.  He doesn't bill by the visit or procedure.  He thinks globally and it's fascinating to watch.  He lives on studies and outcomes and then does what he has proven will work to help as many people possible with a growing number of autoimmune diseases.  He works 24-7 and I'm grateful for all that he does.

Bea did the Amazing Race journey today taking the 6:00 AM flight to Chicago to meet me at the hospital for discharge around 10:00.  She packed my bags, made sure she had all of the discharge paperwork and out the door we flew.  We raced back to the airport to try to catch the 12:45 to Baltimore then on to Islip.  Our original flight wasn't until 6:50 PM arriving at 10:00 this evening.  We were met with the grim news that the 12:45 was overbooked by an amount so high they wouldn't recommend putting our names on the stand by list Grrrrr.  I wasn't afraid to use the "can't you see I've had a rough week" trick with the hospital mask, cue ball head and the best worst post chemo face I could muster, it wasn't hard.  Even though she gave us the bad news she kept typing away.  Whenever they keep typing you always have that glimmer of hope.  Although, too often a seat change request for me results in 18 minutes of typing only to result in the same 37E I walked in with...

So I was in fact getting tired and it didn't appear we were getting anywhere.  She printed the boarding passes for the 6:50 and the stand by passes for the earlier flight.  I thanked her for all of her time.  We began the wheeled journey to the gate which bypasses the security line :)).  We realized we didn't check our luggage so we were about to lose a few of our personal liquids.  I had my favorite 7 oz L'occitaine hand cream but it was only half full.  He wasn't buying my logic so down it went.  We arrived at the gate to check in for stand by and suddenly a camera crew arrived to video the ticket agent and a Supervisor on scene.  Bea was handing the agent the paperwork and suddenly she was in the middle of a shoot.  I couldn't follow much as I was again trying to impress upon them the need for me to arrive home by letting my head fall back and to the side in my wheelchair with my eyes barely more than half open.  Amazingly, within 2 minutes of furious typing 2 tickets popped up to Baltimore and then on to NY!!! 

As they were dumping me by the gate the producer chased down Bea to sign a disclosure form to use the footage for the show "On the Fly" on TLC which apparently is a reality show about the trials and tribulations of flying Southwest.  After Bea agreed he came to me because I was in the background of my wife's scene...  I respectfully declined. 

Our flights were fine.  Despite very full flights Bea and I managed to keep the extra seat in our row empty.  I wonder why??

It was really great to arrive home.  Mom and Dad were cooking chicken parmigiana for Jose Miguel and we had a nice meal.  I'm really grateful to have ended this part of the process and soooooo looking forward to my bed.  Good night!