Being somewhere you've never been before, you're not sure how it's supposed to look, so it's hard to settle into a routine until you sense it's there. That's kind of what all this medical stuff with Steve is like for me (and for him, too, I'm sure).
Steve had a follow-up visit for his small toe on Monday, May 13, then stopped by the lab to get his blood drawn. We got back home about 2:30 in the afternoon and got a call from his primary care physician: Get back to the ER, your platelet count is almost nonexistent. So we schlep back to the ER in Long Beach and Steve gets admitted for transfusions. Three transfusions of whole blood and one of platelets later (on Wednesday morning), they discharge him.
The next day we have appointments with Dr. House (the psychologist) and Dr. Klein (the oncologist). We stop at the lab again, and Dr. Klein says the platelets are low again and has Steve go into the infusion clinic for a transfusion of platelets on Friday. Since I already have a dentist's appointment on Friday, Bob (a friend of ours), takes Steve to the hospital. He's home by the time I get back from the dentist, and even though I/we are supposed to be asking people for help, I still feel guilty about not taking Steve myself.
He will get to return the favor next week: On Wednesday I'm going in for oral surgery to remove a couple of residual roots prior to getting fitted for my partial. They'll use full anesthesia, so I need someone to drive me home. I'm hoping it will feel good for Steve to be the caregiver and me be the patient.
Things are kind of whirling quietly on the business front. I have started the website for Ray and Tony and their antiques/art gallery. We're starting out simple, but I'm designing it with a mind to putting all of their inventory online (which will be quite a chore, believe me; they have loads of great stuff). I think the job is going to carry on long after the site is up. I think we will have to have some lessons in good photography and photographing flat images (like paintings) for best reproduction. Ray wants to set up a photo booth capable of shooting everything from jewelry to large-scale furniture and sculpture. Should be a challenging and enjoyable client.
Yesterday we went to an orientation meeting for the Cancer Support Community here in Pasadena (formerly known as the Wellness Community). We both signed up for support groups, the first of which is tomorrow evening. We arrived about 11 a.m. and got out of the intake interview around 1:15. We stopped for lunch on the way back home and, soon after arriving, the doorbell rang and UPS dropped off a box.
You'll recall Steve signed up with the Neptune Society earlier this month. Well, the box we received had his urn in it, as well as other "momento" articles. It was super creepy. Neither of us opened it, and it went into the upstairs closet, to be dealt with at some point down the road. I know it was a blow for Steve, right after the visit to the support center. Even in our everyday life, death is slowly enfolding an ever-smaller space around us, and while the world remains mundane, an ultimate and irrefutable change is on the horizon: maybe months, maybe years, but inevitably there.
This, too, will become a familiar part of this new way of living.
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