Monday, May 21, 2007 10:47 PM, CDT

Hello,
I’m writing you from the lovely 5 West wing of UMass Memorial. I have a beautiful view of
Belmont Street. I’m shoved way in the corner of the oncology ward in a very quiet room because the doctors don’t want me exposed to any sick people (good thing the hospital is full of them). I’m in such a secluded spot that people who have come to visit me get lost and have difficulty finding me!
I know Greg posted for me on Sunday night but let me fill you in on what’s been going on. I started to feel sick on Friday. It just felt like a common cold but I was exhausted. I literally spent the entire day in bed and my fever was running at about 99.5. I think I mentioned that I missed the annual Dawson Sock Hop because I wasn’t feeling well. I felt better on Saturday but still had the fever. On Sunday I felt sick again and spent most of the day in bed. By 4:30 my fever spiked to 101.6. As Greg mentioned the magic number for an oncology patient is 100.4. If my fever goes above that number, I need to either go into the office (during office hours) or go the local Emergency Room.
Well, I ended up in the Emergency Room, which as always proves to be an experience like none other! When I first got there they hooked me up with an IV and took some blood. Then I had to go for an X-Ray of my chest because I was coughing. As I was finishing up my X-Ray, I heard a God-awful noise out in the hallway. When I came out of the room, I see a woman on a gurney with a neck brace and she’s handcuffed to the bed. She is thrashing about and making a scene……If you’re in a neck brace and handcuffed to a gurney, do you think the likelihood that they’re going to uncuff you goes up or down depending on how much of a scene you make? My guess is it goes down, but I’ll give her an A for effort.
We found out my white blood cell count was down to 864. It needs to be at 1,000 for me to be considered healthy enough to go home. Although the ER doctor thought I looked like a million bucks (and Greg said yeah in Turkish lira!!), the oncology fellow on call felt I should be admitted. I found out at 8:30 I was staying over night; I was brought up to my room at 11:30. However, I didn’t arrive at my room without a harrowing ride. I’m not sure if it was the gurney or the woman driving it but when I tell you that we crashed into every waste basket, a lot of other gurneys, we almost ran over a Worcester cop’s toes, and we bounced off a lot of walls (on both the left hand side and right hand side of the hallway), I’m not exaggerating. I thought it was just me but when we got to the elevator, Greg said, “Can you stop crashing into stuff?” Oh, never a dull moment.
Today (Monday) my counts went down to 600 so I’m staying put in the hospital. But, I have my favorite nurse Donna taking care of me on the 3-11 shift, which makes me very happy. Greg was back and forth from the hospital and brought Lauren and Katie up here to see me which cheered me up like you can’t imagine. Kerry stopped by and brought me a mocha from Starbucks—yummy!!!
Thanks to Greg and Dreah Bitter and Kevin and Donna Stone who found their way to my room for a visit. Wasn’t I psyched that they could all see me looking sick and gross and in my jonnie!!?? I keep wondering where the pink jonnies are that all the actresses wear in the soap operas!! Let me tell you that they’re not here on the 5 west at UMass Memorial!!! So I had on your standard old man jonnie.
Then my nurse Donna let me take a shower and instead of a jonnie she gave me some scrubs just like the actresses wear in Grey’s Anatomy. Seriously, how fun is it that I scored some scrubs?!?! J I think the scrubs are better than a pink jonnie so I’m pretty happy tonight. So you guys got to see the disgusting, sickly Kim in her jonnie and not the clean and less disgusting Kim in her fun new scrubs!! So sorry for you!!! Dreah: You better not ever worrying about coming over without your mascara on. You’ve seen me at just about my worse…..if my appearance today isn’t worthy of you without your mascara, I don’t know what it!!!
That’s all I’m going to write for tonight. I’m tired and I’m hoping I might get a few hours of sleep tonight.
I’ll keep you updated.
Love,
Kim