April 10, 2006

Sorry it's been a while since anyone's posted, but it's been a sort-of rough week. I've been home a month now and looking back, this month has posed different but equally difficult challenges as that first intense month in the hospital. A lot of it has probably been mental. It felt like such a victory to be out of the hospital, like it was supposed to be all downhill from there. So, it was jarring to find the CNS phase of treatment (central nervous system) so difficult to bear. Also, in the hospital, it's clear that I'm there to get better and sitting in that bed all day every day hardly phased me a bit. At home, I expect my body to be more "normal" and I'm impatient and frustrated by my inability to do simple things. Really, I suppose I'm just as sick as I was in the hospital, but now my nurses are my family and my bed doesn't adjust electronically. Anyway, I'm hesitant to state this but... they say the NEXT phase is better and I do have this week "off" to recuperate and rest, so I'm trying to find and celebrate whatever improvements I can find each day and look forward to things easing up, even if it's just a bit.

Poor Jaci has been suffering from the flu all week (even throughout her trip to Oregon!) and her parting gift to me was a cold. Now my angel is back and our house is filled with the symphony of our identical hacking coughs and trumpet nose-blows. I don't really mind my cold symptoms because they ironically make me feel "normal". I take DayQuil and NyQuil, not voriconizolidaniflocin or some such thing. Thank goodness Mom didn't get sick too otherwise we'd all be in big trouble!

Well, perhaps not in such trouble since Bess was here helping out since Thursday. Her mission was to help me get fat. Bess has turned into quite the Martha Stewart as she gave my Mom a well-deserved break in the kitchen and both of us many culinary treats. She took her mission seriously and instructed sternly me to "sit and eat cheese" with a cheese board in front of me and she always had some tantalizing dessert that i couldn't refuse after dinner. I'm sure she must have succeeded in adding a few pounds back to my somewhat bony frame.

I want to give a huge shout out to my A100 class from the Foreign Service who have sent me so much support and solidarity. I miss you guys so much and wish I was still in your ranks. Please keep in touch and fill me in on how your first posts are or how language training is.

Also, I have all the pictures from the hospital up in a Kodak photo gallery. If you would like to see them (perhaps to have a copy of yourself in a wig if you visited), just lemme know and i'll send the album your way!