From haldeman at earthlink.net Fri Jan 1 17:46:28 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 17:46:28 -0500 Subject: 1/1/10 Friday update Message-ID: <8EE58961-9F1A-43BC-830D-49578AD1B3B2@earthlink.net> It's been an odd and interesting week. For four straight days they took Joe off food and drink for long hours so they could do radiology tests and procedures. He was hungry and thirsty all the time. Then he only had tests on two of the days. Finally the surgeons and radiologists decided not to do any procedures. The antibiotics seem to be working well. He's feeling quite well, so when they unhook him from the IVs, he wanders the halls, trying to build up his strength. Finally last night they told him he's coming home with the IVs! Tomorrow, Saturday, a nurse will get us set up and Joe will come home! And I'll learn to deal with IV antibiotics twice a day... The New Year's Eve party went off here as usual. Niece Lore and Tim and sister-in-law Barbara pitched in and did all the planning, shopping and arranging. Tim even tackled cleaning up the garage after he had the party all set up. They were wonderful. I did very little but enjoy the party. About 40 people came, a smaller than usual crowd. Almost everyone brought food so the fridge is over stuffed with great leftovers. A little before midnight, Doris Nabors and I sneaked out with a bottle of alcohol-free champagne and went to Joe's room at the hospital. He was awake, making the nurse laugh. Doris, Joe and I went down the hall to the tiny lounge, watched the ball fall in Times Square and toasted the New Year. Back at the party, lots of folks had pitched in to put stuff away and clean up. I hit the sack at 2AM. Up this morning at 8, yawn. Lore, Tim, Barbara, Chris and Sharon arrived at 9 and Chris built two wonderful egg casseroles, one with meat and the other without and cooked pounds of bacon. Lore brought bread, bagels and spreads and Barbara brought oranges and tangerines. We fed 13 people. I'd been worried about where to seat Joe comfortably when he got home. We desperately need a new, higher sofa. Christina went out shopping today and found the perfect one, two recliners included. After visiting Joe, the Tackaberrys and I went to see the couch and I bought it and a new coffee table. Bill Hutchinson and Jennifer Johnson came to the hospital and did a private concert of wonderful music for Joe, Sharon, Mike and me (and a few nurses). It was so much fun. Joe's having lots of company in relays today. He's in great spirits, ready to come home. Hope they let him go early. Happy New Year to everyone! Love, Gay From haldeman at earthlink.net Sat Jan 2 18:18:09 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 18:18:09 -0500 Subject: Joe's home! Message-ID: <500994A2-62D2-4250-8DEC-54AF764E06E0@earthlink.net> Joe's home from the hospital, feeling pretty well. He has to have a 24-hour IV thing (that's a technical term) for another three weeks, but so far so good. We're going to celebrate our family Christmas tomorrow morning. Love, Gay From haldeman at earthlink.net Sun Jan 3 17:12:49 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 17:12:49 -0500 Subject: 1/3/10 Sunday update Message-ID: Home and comfy now. Carrying around a quart bottle of antibiotic set up for continuous infusion (it's under pressure, and releases the drug all day through the PICC line in my upper arm). We put off Christmas till this morning; Lore, Tim and Barbara came over at 8:30 for opening presents. Not quite as much of a consumer orgy as usual, since I was indisposed and couldn't even go shopping on the web. I got some nice fountain pens. Gay got me a chrome yellow extra-fine Lamy Safari, to replace the one I got last Xmas and lost, and a wonderful Pelikan, which used to be the standard for italic handwriting, and is newly back on the market. Barbara gave me the Pelikano Junior, the European schoolkids' version, which I'll keep in my purse. Gay also got me a lovely large (#14) watercolor brush, a Kolinski sable from Daniel Smith. Many books from divers sources. Billy Collins and Elmore Leonard, to go from the poetic to the prosaic. A replacement chamois shirt from LL Bean -- my old one is going on thirty years old, and decided not to last forever. Just went out and walked a few blocks with Gay. Brr -- it's in the thirties out there, and may drop below 20 tonight. Hope the alligators are okay down under the mud. Don't come knockin'! Gay got a new couch that incorporates two recliners with built-in massagers. Decadent. You have to feed them three times a day, but they're pretty small. Joe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/haldeman-announce/attachments/20100103/a4ea7af6/attachment.htm From haldeman at earthlink.net Tue Jan 5 10:29:11 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 10:29:11 -0500 Subject: No subject Message-ID: <9A86C953-795B-44DB-80CF-79F439545F34@earthlink.net> Dear family and friends: Joe?s new novel STARBOUND appears today from Ace Books. It's the sequel to MARSBOUND, but stands alone, too.The paperback of MARSBOUND is already out. If your book store doesn't have the books, please ask it to order them. Thanks! Carmen Dula and her husband have spent six years traveling to a distant solar system that is home to the enigmatic, powerful race known as "The Others," in the hopes of finding enough common purpose between their species to forge a delicate truce. By the time Carmen and her party return, fifty years have been consumed by relativity-and the Earthlings have not been idle, building a massive flotilla of warships to defend Earth against The Others. But The Others have their own plans. Please visit Joe's website at home.earthlink.net/~haldeman. You can order books from there, too. Come visit his blog on LiveJournal or SFF.Net. As always, if you want to be removed from this list, just drop me a line. Thanks! All best, Gay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/haldeman-announce/attachments/20100105/724ec6a9/attachment.htm From haldeman at earthlink.net Sat Jan 9 16:41:50 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 16:41:50 -0500 Subject: 1/9/10 Saturday update Message-ID: Joe is doing well. Several people have asked, worried that we hadn't written in a while. We're just getting our feet under us. After Joe escaped the hospital, we spent two full days at the VA coordinating his care. He has 24-hour IV antibiotics I administer once a day, they're trying to pull a drain out one centimeter at a time (I get to do that, too) and several other openings that need care. We're learning to cope and how to have a normal life while coping. Folks have brought us dinner, we've gone out to restaurants, we've gone to other peoples' houses, Joe did some grocery shopping alone. He's back to working on his novel every day and he went to his art workshop this morning, where he did some fine paintings. This evening singer Jack Williams is in town, so we're going to his concert. I bought a new TV this morning. It'll be delivered next Thursday. Joe's spent hours asleep on the recliner part of our new sofa. We're doing okay. I hope all the rest of you are doing okay, too. It's unusually cold here in Florida, but we really can't complain. Stay warm, everyone. Love, Gay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/haldeman-announce/attachments/20100109/8c3eb906/attachment.htm From haldeman at earthlink.net Mon Jan 18 15:39:12 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:39:12 -0500 Subject: 1/18 Monday update Message-ID: <8C25556F-9585-4DF2-94B6-B9ACBDF28C9F@earthlink.net> Just a quick note to say things are going pretty well here. Joe's still on the IV antibiotics, at least until Thursday. He's feeling well, though napping often. His abdominal drain fell out last Wednesay, so we spent a couple of hours in the ER for safety's sake. Wait and watch was the verdict. We went back to the gym yesterday. He rode a leisurely 3 miles on a stationary bike with no ill effects, a good start. He's writing and cooking and we're going out with friends. Next doctor appointment is Wednesday. Happy Martin Luther King Day. Love, Gay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/haldeman-announce/attachments/20100118/91da687c/attachment.htm From haldeman at earthlink.net Fri Jan 22 10:20:35 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:20:35 -0500 Subject: 1/21 Thursday update from Joe and Gay Message-ID: <7165D8C1-389B-4BE3-8BF6-3A85216EC728@earthlink.net> Here's part of Joe's blog post: Went to the VA doctor yesterday morning, and it was all good news. My wounds are recovering well and clinical tests have come out good -- mainly the lack of pancreatic enzymes, indicating the pancreas has healed well. But I also "don't look sick," which means a lot to him. I did look sick a couple of weeks ago. He said it would be possible to schedule the surgery to reattach my ileum and colon as early as March, though he would advise waiting longer. It's a serious operation, and the stronger I am, the smaller probability of complications. The recovery period will be long. Some patients grow so tired of the ileostomy bag that they want the surgery as soon as possible. It was my decision. Well, the factors going into my decision are complicated. I do not like the ileostomy bag at all, the inconvenience and potential for social disaster. The feeling of being a handicapped cyborg. But March surgery would interfere with both the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts and the Nebula Awards. He suggested July, but we'll be going to Europe then, and the one inflexible date is the Hemingway conference in Lausanne at the beginning of July. August is out because we're going to Australia, and will be going straight to MIT after that. I could have the surgery done in Boston, but it would screw up the teaching schedule. So it looks like next January. By then I will have given the damned bag a name and be drawing funny faces on it. But I would be completely recovered from the current surgery and have an unencumbered recovery period for the next. So it looks like next January, with this April as a possibility if I grow impatient. But in spite of his optimism I do feel scarily weak, and don't know that five or six weeks will get me up to par. Joe PS from Gay: He's now off the antibiotics and we're watching for any problems from that. All the travel he mentions is entirely tentative. Right now he couldn't do it and we're taking no chances. He's eating well but not gaining much weight, though the doctor says he isn't undernourished. As far as I'm concerned, no optional surgery until he's completely back to normal. Thanks again for all your support and concern. Love, Gay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/haldeman-announce/attachments/20100122/04bcf9be/attachment.htm From haldeman at earthlink.net Tue Jan 26 17:37:33 2010 From: haldeman at earthlink.net (Gay Haldeman) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:37:33 -0500 Subject: 1/26 Tuesday update from Joe Message-ID: <27F45461-C2AE-4291-BE16-41E5CB781EC1@earthlink.net> I did my first actual bicycle ride since last August, yesterday. Got on the recumbent and pedaled three miles. That's like five miles on a regular bike, and I was pretty beat afterwards. (This from a guy who lazed through a metric century on his June birthday.) It's progress, and it was good to get out in the pleasant cool, sixties. I used the recumbent in case I lost balance, since you can only fall about eighteen inches from it. But there was no problem; I'll go out on the road bike next. Finished signing all the front pages for the leatherbound edition of STARBOUND for Easton Press. They did a good job on MARSBOUND and have contracted for EARTHBOUND, should the author get off his ass and finish it. I had a welcome medical milestone yesterday. The nurse came over and said the VA doctors had told her to take out the PICC line in my arm. Meaning my lab results said that I wouldn't be needing the antibiotic drip anymore. I took a shower afterwards and had this discomfiting notion that I was forgetting something. Oh, yeah. The antibiotic bottle I've been carrying around like a pet on a leash. Joe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/haldeman-announce/attachments/20100126/d3d5eba0/attachment.htm