On Tuesday of this week, Lee and I traveled to Durham for his clinic appointment on Wednesday, Feb. 20. We decided to leave early in order to visit our friend whom I told you about in an earlier blog. After talking to two of our other transplant friends, we all decided to meet in Durham, have lunch with our friend's wife and hopefully get to have a short visit with him, depending on how he was doing on that day.
In preparation for this meeting, we decided to make it a reunion, of sorts, and to plan to leave some surprises for the two of them to use during those long hospital days that we all remembered so well. After many e-mails, and a couple of phone calls, we were able to rendezvous in the hotel lobby of the Hampton's Inn. As usual, we met with open arms, lots of hello's and hugs, having not seen each other for a period of many months. Everyone arrived with bags of personal items, books, candy, gum, game books, a new "Sports Illustrated" for our friend (our guys knew this would be stimulating!). We filled a large yellow basket with all the treasures, covered it in cellophane wrapping and tied it with a ribbon. In fact, we had so many items that we had to fill two additional gift bags...one more for our friends, and the other for another transplant asquaintance, who unbeknown to us was back at Duke.
We had so much fun making the basket, that one of our girls said that we now belonged to the "Ya, Ya, Sisterhood"! We could not leave the guys out, hence, the "Brotherhood"! After having lunch with our friend's wife, we were delighted to learn that he had requested a particular dish from one of his favorite restaurants in Durham! What a joy to see him sitting up in bed, munching on fried shrimp and looking at his Sports Illustrated magazine with a contented smile on his face!
The next day, Wednesday, Lee had a full day at the clinic. His schedule began @ 7:30 a.m. with labs, breathing tests, x-ray, and then to the out-patient endoscopy area at 9:30 for a bronchoscopy @ 10:30. He was to see the doctor at 1:00, so we did not have time for lunch since he had to wait until 1:30 until he could eat. I did insist that he eat the peanut butter cracker I had handy, along with a large coke. (Remember one time after an early bronch. he did not get to eat, and fainted in the treatment room....followed by a 6-hour visit to the ER, when he only needed to eat!.........of course, I wanted to avoid that again!
Anyway, all reports were very good, and Lee is to stay on all meds as is and to be proactive in calling Duke if we have any questions. He will probably return in another 4 months, just for a clinic visit. It was a very good day! I did make a mental note of the way he reacted to the anesthesia (fentyl, versed ) this time. He was awake quickly and remained alert for the next several hours. After eating a small meal around 5:00, he began to get very groggy....almost like a delayed reaction to the drugs. I suspect that maybe he had been given something to reverse the drug and when it wore off, the drug was still there.
Anyway, all was well after his good night's sleep, and we were able to leave Durham early yesterday morning. We checked with our friends before leaving and were disappointed to learn that he had a bad night and his wife had to stay with him. I am afraid our visit might have been a little too much for his debilitated condition.
Lee drove all the way, as usual, while I read in my new book on the Kindle for 2 hours. Lee loves for me to read and not help him drive (back-seat driving, that is). I have to admit that I do get nervous going 75-80 miles per hour in 5 lanes of traffic! We were back home by 12:00, and had I driven, we would have taken another hour! A good trip to Durham.
More later................................................Brenda
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