Mark Your Calendar

One of the Islanders who will stay in our home while I and my family live in Boston for the bone marrow transplant came for an initial visit on one of the nicest Spring days so far. Just as we are wrapping up I got a phone call from a 617 area code and knew it was the hospital. A nurse pathfinder is calling on Friday afternoon wondering if I knew that I had an admit date. “Actually No,” I tell Rhondine, “Your admit date is June 3rd for a week of chemo before your transplant on June 10th.” I am standing outside the mudroom, overwhelmed and tell her I need to go inside so I can write down what she is telling me. She asks if I can be at the hospital at 9 am for a meeting with a nurse, and then a social worker and my transplant doctor before my scheduled blood work and meeting with the MDS doctor on Tuesday, May 6th. Also there are other tests like an , EKG, an echocardiogram, a chest x-ray, a pulmonary function test and more that need to be done in preparation for my admit date. We get everything straightened out and I know it will all be on the Visits page of my Patient Gateway account. Once again I am home alone with dogs and overwhelmed by emotions. The countdown is on. I go into organizing gear and decide I have to book our furnished apartment near the hospital asap. I check online sites including Zillow, VRBO, Stars of Boston, Furnished Quarters, AirBnB, Corporate Housing.com and Blueground. I have stayed in the apartments opposite the back side of the hospital twice previously when my husband was hospitalized at MGH, but that was so long ago I can’t remember how I contacted them. After nearly 90 minutes looking at primarily the same two units on a variety of sites I see the buildings where I want to stay are all listed on the Blueground site, a company I’m not familiar with, but I proceed when I find a 2-bedroom with a washer/dryer in unit. I am stressed at the point I reserve the unit and pay a full third deposit with a requirement the entirety is paid in full within two days. I forward the email reservation to my husband relieved they still had a unit available. 

I pay the remaining rent in full Sunday morning and breathe a sigh of relief. Later on Sunday when my husband returns home and scrutinizes the details of our rented unit he discovers there is no washer/dryer in the unit despite that having been in my search and visible to me on the amenities list. When I go back to look there is a very faint line thru the washer/dryer. I write to the company, call the company asking to switch to another unit, sadly a more expensive one in the same complex as we have to have an in unit washer/dryer to adhere to safety rules for my stay both in the hospital and in the apartment. I explain all this in my email. The phone number I call lets me know no one works on Sunday. What transpires over the next 48-hours adds so much stress to an already-stressful situation I can hardly believe it. Although it clearly states that I should not “cancel” my reservation if I want to “switch” units I keep getting emails that say I have to cancel and pay a half-month’s rent in order to secure another short-term rental. I phone the Boston number nearly 20 times throughout the day without anyone ever answering a call or returning a call. I wrote to the founder of the company and the head of US Operations through my Linked-In account and never get a response. On Tuesday I phone a NYC number and lo and behold the woman who has been saying my only choice is to pay a half-months rent, and whom I have asked in at least two emails to put me in contact with her supervisor to which I never receive a response, answers the phone and knows exactly who I am. Somehow there is a supervisor in the room with her and I manage to secure a refund less $500. Then I book the more expensive 2-bedroom with the washer/dryer and it turns out two days later it is not available through them and they will give me a full refund. I take that option and manage to book the same unit through the management company which I have now found for the building I want to stay in. Mind you it still takes nearly two weeks to get my first refund while the second one is credited back to me within 48-hours.

Second Protocol 

I begin my second 28-day protocol the last week of April. Somehow, likely from being so stressed about securing the apartment, I missed the message that I need to get my labs done prior to beginning my infusion on Monday. I get a 9 am phone call Monday morning from Oncology to remind me about the labs, hustle and get myself asap to the hospital. It takes exactly an hour to be seen and I’m just five minutes late for my infusion. I feel like an old hand on this second round. After Tuesday’s infusion I have a virtual meeting with the MDS doctor at MGH. Besides wanting to know how I’m feeling, he goes over all the meetings and tests coming up the following Monday and Tuesday in Boston. The week of infusions goes smoothly, the oral meds still have no outward effect, and I don’t even feel the same exhaustion I did on the first round. What I do feel is a countdown beginning, time slipping away toward something that still is super scary. On Sunday I drive myself to Providence where I have a lot of things to still take care of in preparation for others to take on my responsibilities. Even Monday morning I’m still running errands before my husband and I get an Uber to the Amtrak Station. The one good thing is the hotel was not full on Sunday so there’s no problem with an early check-in. Luckily the commuter train is pretty empty and I enjoy the ride to Boston on a misty rainy Monday. Taking an Uber from Back Bay is so much more relaxing than driving ourselves. We check-in and go up to our room. Then I head to the walk-in Radiology Department in Yawkey for a chest x-ray and am done within 30 minutes. It’s finally time to pick up lunch from Anna’s Taqueria, after all it is Cinco de Maya. At 4:30 pm I have a series of Pulmonary tests. The young technician gently guides me through each test. Two take place inside a plexiglass booth, one with the door open and the other with it shut. The last test is done on another machine. I ask a lot of questions never having seen nor taken any pulmonary tests in my life. She tests about 60 patients a week, needing approximately an hour per patient. She tells me she has about one patient a week who aces the test, I’m the second one that day.

We order dinner from Tatte on Charles Street and I walk through a cool drizzle to pick it up, arriving early just as our dinners are being bagged. My younger son is still on the Vineyard. Both my sons have promised to join me and my husband for all the meetings on Tuesday. There’s no way I’d be able to answer all their questions, and would prefer they be able to ask any questions while we are with the doctors. My younger son wants to enjoy dinner with our former Vineyard housemate author Cynthia Riggs who is staying the night while our friend Lynn dog-sits. When I call to make sure he’s really leaving the Island he asks if it’s okay to leave some things in my husband’s office. We tell him of course, we just want him to show up tomorrow.

At 7 am on Tuesday I head out to grab breakfast and a coffee, I really need to walk before three hours of sitting in meetings at the hospital. We arrive just before 9 am, I get checked in at the front desk, my sons arrive, and just after I sit down we are called and shown to an examination room. I can have the EKG right there and just need to remove my shirt. That takes a couple minutes, shirt back on and then my transplant doctor arrives for our first appointment. He is a sweet man, and I wonder about the donors since he’d written that I had five full matches. In fact I had at least eight matches, all from Israel. As a first generation American on my father’s side (he was born in Germany) and a 6th generation American on my mother’s side, it made a lot of sense. Even though I’d been told the predominant number of donors were from Germany, after the war both Germans and Americans left for Israel to begin new lives. Six months after my transplant my donor can decide if I can make contact with them. Dr. Chung shows us a xerox chart of what my year and a week will look like once I am admitted to MGH.

Day one get admitted and have a procedure to have a central line (officially called a tunnel catheter in my case) put in, get moved to my room on Lunder 10, and have my first conditioning infusion. I will have five days of infusions, one day off and then my transplant, also a 30-minute infusion. The donor blood is frozen and flown in a few days prior to my transplant. I should still be feeling okay, then I have two days off before beginning a more intense protocol and it is during days three to twenty I can expect fatigue, fevers, possible transfusions, hair loss, loss of ability to taste, nausea, and in rare cases organ damage. It takes 14 – 18 days for the stem cells to start making new white blood cells, sometimes even longer. From day twenty on I can expect to regain strength, be monitored for Graft-Versus-Host-Disease (in other words my body rejects my donors cells), relapse, infection and the need for revaccination. The first 30 days are critical, and the first 100 require minimal exposure to other people. I will be visiting the hospital two to three times weekly. Being nearby means I never have to worry if there are any transportation issues, unlike being on the Vineyard in the summer or even trying to deal with traffic from Providence since I can only be in a car. We are so lucky to be able to afford this luxury and peace of mind. My husband never drives into Boston, and I sure would not appreciate any added stress during recovery.

After Dr. Chung has explained everything I can expect, an hour has swiftly passed and a nurse navigator arrives with a half-inch thick folder to go over with us. We decline an in-person visit to Lunder where I’ll be living for three to four weeks and opt for the video link to be sent to us. It turns out donor contact rules are different country to country, I do know I will want to make contact with my donor when allowed. My folder is full of information like the full spellings of the infusions I will receive during my conditioning days and post-transplant days, and their their side effects. There are guidelines for housecleaning, guidelines for food from outside the hospital, diet guidelines to follow once I leave the hospital, and recommended foods and foods to avoid. When I am admitted, it will be 2:30 pm and I will not have been able to eat anything nor drink anything after 10 pm the night before but clear liquids until three hours prior to my admit time. Day one does not sound like a whole lot of fun. Once we get through the nearly 90 minute meeting with our lovely nurse navigator it’s back to the waiting room for labs. I’m a mess at this point, crying on my older son’s shoulder and trying to pull myself together in this public space. I get called within five minutes for my labs. 

The first question my jovial Haitian-born nurse asks is, “How are you doing?” Maybe the worst thing to ask in that moment, because I choke and cannot answer her. She cracks an instant ice pack tells me to lean forward and places it half way down my spine and asks me to sit back. Next she grabs a cranberry juice and peels back the lid and tells me to drink since we have a lot to do. I ask if she’s getting me “to chill,” but appreciate everything she’s done to calm me. We keep talking as she fills vial after vial. When she learns I grew up in NYC she tells me she lived in Queens on 65th Street. I don’t watch any lab work ever, and never feel a thing during this visit. I thank her and return to my family in the waiting area. When I ask at reception about our next appointment with the MDS doctor I’m told he’s running 30 minutes late. We are all ready for lunch. My husband is happy to head to the ground floor cafe, and I tell my sons I’d love a GF pizza with veggies. Everyone heads out and I settle looking out from the ninth floor windows on another grey drizzly day. My husband shows up and we are called to go in for the last appointment. We end up waiting 30 minutes for the doctor to arrive. He goes over more important details. I understand everything is contingent on my May 22nd bone marrow biopsy, biopsy number three. If I have the same amount of blasts or less, we’re on schedule. If I have more I will still need to be in Boston but will have another more intense protocol, and we’ll go from there, but he and my bone marrow doctor feel like everything will be okay.

My sons pick up pizza and text that they’ll meet us in our hotel lobby. We return and I’m famished, sometimes pizza is the best tasting food in the world, and this GF pizza is really really good. I’m so glad my sons hang out while I eat my lunch. My husband leaves us to go get coffee. When I finish eating my older son hands me something about an inch in diameter and two inches long wrapped in green and blue tissue paper. I cannot figure out from feeling it what it could be. I unwrap his gift to find he’s painted a small Buddha head for me, something to bring with me to the hospital. It’s beautiful and I’m deeply touched. He’s been painting board game and fantasy figures in the last few years, even using an airbrush. I love it. Now both my sons need to get going, it is in fact a work day and my older son started a new job at the beginning of April so we hug and off they go. My husband and I catch a 2:20 pm train back to Providence, there is someone in every row and it makes me uptight, my ears listening for every cough and throat clear to assess how far I am from that person. It is a relief to finally get back to Providence. I head home to the Vineyard on the following day, still overwhelmed.

Bloodwork and Beyond

I have eased into a Monday Thursday schedule of regular labs to monitor LDH (lactate dehydrogenase): tissue damage in my blood; Magnesium levels; CDC (a complete blood count) to monitor my platelets, white/red blood counts, hemoglobin and more; and a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (always normal). I do all these at our local hospital lab, arriving by 6:45 am to ensure a shorter wait than midday which can be 90 minutes. I signed up for another 21-day Reiki Healing with Jamie Butler and am thankful it began the day after all our MGH meetings. After the labs, walking the dogs, Reiki and then teaching class I have a 10 am virtual MGH Social Worker meeting on my first full day home. We talk and I’ve already done most of what she’s bringing up. I do learn Reiki, Massage and Sound Therapy are offered on Lunder, all very popular so I need to make my wishes known early. At the end of our conversation she inquires if I’m interested in being a mentee, “of course,” I respond. A few days later I receive an email form to fill out for the mentor program. Life continues with Monday Thursday bloodwork. I realize I’m about to run out of my thyroid medication and ask my PCP to please put in a request to our local pharmacy. When my husband tries to pick up my meds he learns I cannot get a new refill for another two weeks. I realize I’ve left the meds in Providence. My mcg dosage changed with nearly every bloodwork so when I was put on the most recent dosage I noticed I still had a half-full vial and decided to use that up first., stuffing the one I’d just picked up in my sock drawer. 

I was almost two weeks out from infusions and had just a few more days of oral meds so going to Providence was doable. Most important was my Thursday morning bloodwork and seeing my platelet numbers rise so there would be no question about needing a platelet infusion. I was good to go. It was a rainy day and I took a noon boat after finishing teaching at 10 am. My husband agreed to keep the dogs which gave me the freedom to focus on errands, stocking up for our short-term rental and getting some supplies for our Vineyard home. The stores were empty at 2 pm. When I got to Providence I checked our mailbox on our stoop and found a soaking wet letter, opened by our downstairs neighbor informing us that the power to our garage/guest quarters would be shut-off that day. Since installing a separate meter there I’d never once received a bill by mail or electronically. I phoned Rhode Island Energy who said they’d been mailing bills to Lowell, Mass?! I was dumfounded, paid my bill over the phone, and was grateful I was in Providence to deal with this. At the same time a mysterious odor was making tenants in a commercial space I did over for below market rentals to locals, fell sick. My older son and his partner had offered to come to the Vineyard for four days, but I know that’s not his favorite place, he doesn’t drive and they don’t have a car, so I suggested they visit me in Providence. They arrived in time for dinner, helped me drop off supplies at our carriage house rental, then we got to sit outside and enjoy burgers at There, There, a favorite haunt on the Westside of Providence. We stopped down the street at Tricycle Ice Cream, owned by a Buddhist, and ran into Nacho, the curator of GRID Gallery, one of my Corliss Corner tenants.

I was exhausted by the time we returned home, but when I went upstairs and saw from the windows the braziers lit along the pedestrian bridge I headed out for a quick walk for this Sunset Waterfire lighting. I felt so much calmer having Hudson and Sarah around. On Friday I taught my two Rev6 Vitality classes from home with no worries about our internet connection. Unlike on the Island where a week earlier I could not connect to teach my second class. Sarah came along to help me carry the supplies upstairs to the rental only to find an unmade bed, things left in the fridge and freezer, and a host of smaller issues which we tackled over the next 90 minutes before guests would arrive at 3 pm that day for a family college graduation weekend celebration. My wonderful cleaning service admitted someone new had been there and promised it would not happen again. My son worked at home all day and we decided to pick dinner up from a restaurant we’d passed on our way home the evening before. Cru has an eclectic menu and we all were happily surprised by our meals with leftovers for lunch the following day. After dinner we did a short walk crossing the pedestrian bridge and then circled back over the Point Street Bridge. It was hard to say goodbye when I dropped off my son and his partner so they could head home to Boston.

I feel each last, the last time to be with them before my last supper in Boston the night prior to my admit date. On Saturday, it was a slow start, did the last of my errands and picked up dinner at Tallulah’s Taqueria, with one meal to bring home. Sunday I left early enough to make the 7:30 am freight boat versus my 9:30 am reservation, but still missed my husband who was on his way to Providence.

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Sunday evening Steve, my BMT mentor phoned. We spoke for about an hour. He had his transplant two years ago, and also had MDS. Our stories were not the same, but speaking with him changed everything about my attitude, gave me hope about having more energy than I’d been led to believe from the doctors. He pointed out they have to explain worst case scenarios. He lives alone, in New Hampshire and drove himself for his weekly appointments for the second and third month. His sisters who live nearby did his shopping and helped with other chores, but he did fine. We went over all my questions and had one common thread between us, golf. He worked managing golf courses, setting up maintenance programs for golf clubs and more. I’m named for Ben Hogan’s wife, Valerie. My mother learned to play golf from Ben Hogan who was the pro at the country club across the road from where my mother had grown up in Elmsford, NY. With no other neighbors for five miles she snuck into the club and was adopted by the golfers. She played seriously winning Runner Up for NYS in 1939, but she understood she’d never be on top and with the war, she shifted gears. Golf remained one of the most important interests throughout her lifetime.

To know Steve, my transplant mentor, is there for me at anytime through this whole process is so calming. I feel really lucky. The funniest thing he remarked on was the day he was discharged there were two large moving trucks downstairs delivering new beds. That had been the worst part of his stay, an uncomfortable bed and subsequent back pain. 

Sure I’m eating a bit more sugar as the countdown continues to my admit date, but I have much less fear overall. Through the Reiki healings I have focused on my biopsy, willing the results to be in an acceptable range to move forward. Today is Wednesday, and after my beach walk with the dogs at Lucy Vincent I run into Martina who remarks about the impending Nor’easter. I knew rain was coming, but now a possible off-season Nor’easter! When I drive home I get a message from Lauren, the Oncology receptionist. Once home I use our land line to return her call. If there is a Nor’easter, maybe the boats won’t run. She asks if I want to postpone Thursday’s bone marrow biopsy. I ask if the Oncology NP has spoken with my transplant doctor, whether this would delay my admit date. Lauren says she’ll have Barb, the NP call me back. When I speak with Barb I learn the biopsy could take place in either of the last two weeks of May. I’m happy to play it by ear regarding the weather. Barb explains that the biopsy sample can be sent within 48 hours and is still usable. If the weather were to be bad for three days then it would be better to wait a week. Where we live the weather is changeable no matter the forecast, we decide to keep the biopsy scheduled and I’m open to any last minute change. I have to leave for the hospital no later than 7 am to insure I’ll get my labs done before the 8:30 am biopsy, so I’ll be there in any case.

Not the Weather After All

Thursday I need to leave my home by 7 am to get to the hospital lab for bloodwork in case there’s a wait. I’ve arranged for my friend Lynn to come walk the dogs and for our cleaning ladies to come in the morning, all before my husband should arrive home. When I leave it’s only drizzling. According to weather reports the storm won’t roll in til about 11 am. The early drive by farms, fields and familiar terrain is soothing, is one of the things I love about living on this island. To my absolute surprise one patient is walking into the lab with a nurse leaving the waiting room empty. Before I even sit my number is called. The waiting room is still empty when I’m done, something I haven’t ever seen once in the many months of bi-weekly visits. I drive myself to the Oncology parking lot, and connect through my phone to my morning Reiki healing with Jamie Butler. It pours while I’m still in the car, but I’m in the zone. I stay connected as I enter Oncology at 8:30 am and am checked in, temperature taken, weighed, shown into my treatment room and await the procedure. Sam, the nurse who has assisted for my previous two biopsies comes in and is surprised I already have been to the lab. Then Barb, the Oncology NP, who has performed my previous biopsies enters. We all feel three time’s a charm and believe this will be a good specimen on the first try for the aspiration and core sample. Barb opens the seal and lays out her tools. Someone knocks and a maskless nurse enters the room with papers in her hands saying, “I think you need to see this.” Barb takes the papers and reads. This just came in from the MGH lab, she explains, they would need to process the sample by noon due to their holiday hours. She is dumbfounded that this information was not sent Wednesday. The plane that takes samples to Boston leaves the Island at 11 am daily, so it is an impossibility to make this deadline. The biopsy has to be postponed until the following Wednesday. I already have a follow-up 6-month mammogram at 8 am and now will head directly to Oncology afterwards for the biopsy. At this point I’m fine going with the flow. It’s pouring when I head to my car and return home. 

On Friday I begin feeling soreness around the pocket that is behind my last molar on the bottom right jaw. I use a water flosser multiple times though out the day and feel fine all day despite minor pain in the area. On Saturday morning I wake up and do Wordle, Connections and most of Spelling Bee on my phone in bed, then phone my brother who lives in Germany, so it’s six hours ahead, and catch up with his health and family news. When I finally get out of bed I feel chills. It’s another 50 something degree morning that feels like the low 40’s outside. I have to take a bath and wash my hair so put on my long terrycloth robe, let the dogs out, head to the kitchen and keep questioning whether I’m really experiencing chills. A while back I received a blue folder from Barb, the Oncology NP, that contained a new thermometer. Every doctor had made it clear if I have a fever higher than 100.4 or chills I have to call them if it is during business hours or head to the ER. I feed the dogs and take my temperature. Initially 99.7, more chills, next reading 100.2. Finish feeding the dogs and next reading 101.4. This is not a drill, I know I have to go to the hospital. I’m hungry so grab a half waffle from the freezer and put it in the toaster oven, head back to my room to dress, pack a bag for the hospital, imagining a one-night stay. Next reading 101.7. I tell my husband what I’m doing and feel I can drive myself. He can walk the dogs before and stay home. I arrive at 7:45 am. The waiting room is empty. I’m taken to the same room I’ve been in twice before, once with my husband, and once with my youngest son, both over a decade ago. 

Adam, the doctor on call, is very sweet and explains all the tests they will have to do. I get bloodwork, but it has to be drawn via two methods in case of contamination. I get a Covid test, a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. It’s about 11:40 am and I’m getting pretty hungry because I ate a small breakfast. I phone my friend Alisen and ask if she’ll pick lunch up for me from the Art Cliff Diner and offer her a free meal. She’s game. I place the order online and then the doctor comes in. I tell him I have ordered lunch, and he tells me I can’t eat until I get a cat scan and may not be able to eat until the results are in. I’m relived to learn I will be able to eat after the cat scan, phone Art Cliff and ask them to hold the order until I call back. About fifteen minutes later a gentleman shows up to bring me for a cat scan, something I’ve never had before. I lay down on the table and he connects a clear tube with fluid dye he explains will take 90 seconds to permeate the soft tissue in my jaw for the scans. The whole procedure is done in about five minutes and I’m wheeled back to my windowless ER room. I phone Art Cliff and tell them the order can go through, phone Alisen and look forward to a classic breakfast. I rarely eat, eggs with homefries, bacon and GF toast. When she arrives I dig in and tell her to take hers home, that I’m fine and don’t need her to stay. But it was great having her so close by. I have no problem eating.

When I arrived they put a line in my arm for anti-biotic infusions, something I’ve now had every eight hours for the last two days. Adam has been in contact with the doctor on call from Dr. Brunner’s team, my MDS doctor, at MGH. Once all the results are in it’s up to them whether or not I can stay and be admitted on the Vineyard or have to be transported to Boston. I do not want to go to Boston, this is my last week at home before my June 3rd admit date to MGH and I still have lots to do. After 3:30 pm I learn I will get stay on MV and when a room is ready I’ll be taken upstairs. They’ve also spoken with Barb, who had assured me before I left for the hospital I would be well taken care of. I wrote to both Barb and my hematologist to let them know I was heading to the ER. All the second floor hospital rooms are private and I have a view over the Vineyard Haven harbor and can watch the ferries coming and going besides sunsets. Once I’m settled in my room dinner arrives, chicken, mashed potatoes and overcooked veggies. I’m having a hard time chewing, it’s just too painful, though the chicken tastes good, I give up. I phone Alisen again and ask if she has time to pick up some Cocojune yogurt for me before her evening events. She graciously does so and makes my day, though she insists I have two, not one yogurt, and I’m glad she did, because I have no problem scraping every last bit out of both containers.

I continue to have vitals taken every four hours and get my antibiotic infusion every eight hours. The nurse who comes in the middle of the night is who checks me in regularly in Oncology. The morning lab technician I know from her days at Karpet Care, when my studio was right next door, and they did my flooring for my Chilmark studio, besides having her do my labs a number of times over the last weeks. A photograph by my husband hangs down the hall from my room and the photos in my room, one by Janet Woodcock, whose was the first photograph I bought of the Vineyard before I even lived here full-time, and who I wrote a story about her and her partner’s garden for my Gardens of Love column that ran for 14 years in the local paper, also an Alison Shaw in the bathroom. Down the hall is artwork by friends and six Island portraits by Bruce Davidson, a Magnum photographer I know from when I worked there two different times in the 1980’s, besides running into him in Chilmark where he’s been a seasonal renter for decades. I’m surprised because there is a photo of my neighbor’s mother Marie Scott, who really started the original Beetlebung Farm, a great photo of a young Juli Vanderhoop in regalia, and others I’ve never seen before, large color square format prints. I see them because Alisen has brought me some things like fresh socks and underwear from home since she was cat sitting down the road and that saves my husband an unnecessary trip. I’m ready for a walk when she arrives and dress, meeting her at the top of the stairs, then being told by a nurse I’m welcome to walk on this floor, or on the outside roof garden which she unlocks the door to and Alisen and I stay outdoors walking, talking, and looking at the overgrown plantings and what’s blooming. I return later by myself and manage to clock in nearly two miles.

The doctor came by in the early afternoon when I still felt a mild headache. He told me he could let me go home or keep me another night. The infusion anti-biotic works so well I prefer to get through this infection to stay on track for June 3rd. He agrees and it’s one more night. After the first walk outdoors I feel so much better having fresh air and feel like I could go home, but I’m ok with my decision to stay. 

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In the evening I continue binge watching L’Etoile, which gets better with each episode, when that’s done I watch the Joni Mitchell doc, followed by one on Linda Ronstadt which turns out to be super interesting. I can swallow way more easily in the evening. I ate half of my mixed salad and all the sliced chicken and broccoli for lunch, and my entire dinner of chicken, rice and carrots. I had my husband send a kiwi and gf brownie bite which I enjoyed after lunch. ​

Though each time someone knocks and I say “Come in” and they don’t have a mask on and are in the wrong room, I feel compromised and hear the doctor’s warning, "we want to get you out of here so you don’t pick anything else up." In the early morning when the nurse takes my vitals and empties the trash she has left the door open. When she leaves I put my mask on, and maybe that’s my best practice on this last half day.